Vertical Ascent
by Magikoopa981
Summary: Three years ago Bowser left the Mushroom Kingdom, giving up his dogged pursuit of Princess Peach. Now he lives quietly in Sarasaland, disguised as an ordinary koopa. But things are changing. While Bowser tries to find meaning in life, several ghosts from the past have come to haunt the former king…
1. Chapter 1: Let's Go Away for Awhile

Vertical Ascent

By Magikoopa981

Chapter One: Let's Go Away For Awhile

_BREAKING NEWS: Former King Bowser Koopa disappears! Ignorant hospital staff under scrutiny from Mushroom Kingdom authorities! Queen Peach wishes Bowser well. No comment from King Mario..._

It was a strange thing to see posted up on the wall of the stairs, frayed from age and peeling a bit from the humid atmosphere. The date was marked as just about three years ago, though the time looked foreign to Bowser. Time did not mean as much to him these days, in his quieter, more peaceful life.

It was hard to believe that three years had passed already.

Bowser adjusted his short hat and walked the rest of the way down the dry steps, entering the underground establishment he had begun to frequent recently. As of a few weeks ago he had wanted to go out more, though he was still cautious about hiding his identity. Speaking too frequently, he could drop something indicating who he really was. He did not want to be found.

The place, "Dark Land", was marked as a Koopa Kingdom-style pub, meaning most of the food was Koopa-styled, as were the furnishings. The walls were covered with old paraphernalia, images of what the Koopa Kingdom used to be, before it had been effectively acquired by the Mushroom Kingdom— spiked shells hung on the wall, as well as a Koopa Kingdom flag, photos, newspaper articles stretching back some thirty years, and even some real pieces of art that were painted by Kingdom artists. Bowser recognized them with some awe, and wondered who owned the bar. It was not unheard of to have Koopa Kingdom-styled businesses, but the amount and variety of stuff here was impressive. These days, most people were celebrating the absorption of the Koopa Kingdom into the Mushroom Kingdom, and it was popular everywhere to celebrate Mushroom customs and culture.

Yes, things seem to have gotten better for everyone since Bowser had given up.

He sat down at the counter and hailed the bartender over. He'd start with a beer. Something simple. He used to hate the taste of alcohol, but somewhere in the last three years his taste buds had developed an appreciation for the lightness of beer.

In general, a lot had changed in the last three years. He didn't look the same, for instance. His appearance had physically morphed. He pretty much appeared to be a regular koopa—perhaps a bit tall—instead of the monstrous form he used to have. Something strange had happened to him.

It was just a few weeks after Bowser had left the Mushroom Kingdom. He had been wandering alone through a vast forest, a sea of trees that stretched along one of the kingdom's borders, when a rain began to sweep in. It soon turned fierce, and looking for shelter, Bowser had soon come across an old church, with one great tower and a shattered stained glass window. The building was admittedly creepy, but it was better to take shelter than continue wandering through the now whipping rains and loud thunder.

The front door of the building lead directly into a great hall, with another stained glass window high above— this one still intact. The glass depicted a strange figure dressed in white, some faded religious icon. The place ached with forgotten stories and dreams, scenery that matched Bowser's attitude. He had given up on his old plans of conquering the Mushroom Kingdom and Princess Peach's heart. He had given up on his old reasons for living, because he had failed so many times. He could bare that burden of conquest no longer. A disintegrating old church like this was the right place for him.

Huddled under an arch, he began to drift off into sleep. He was entertaining thoughts of possibly staying there to live when he was alerted to the sound of tapping wood on stone. A very old koopa crept out of the shadows from deeper in the church, back bent and slowly crossing the stone floor with the help of a gnarled cane. Bowser believed it was a ghost at first, and his heart leapt for a moment.

"Good evening," The koopa greeted creakily.

"Good evening," Bowser returned cautiously. He was strong, but he held a couple of superstitions regarding ghosts.

The old koopa stopped in front of Bowser.

"My, you're a big one." He tapped his cane on the floor for emphasis. "Have we met?"

Outside the thunder crashed, and Bowser jumped again. The old man didn't seem to be dangerous, but he was still eerie.

"I don't think so," Bowser said slowly, squinting in the darkness, "What are you doing out here, grandfather?"

The old man straightened his back slightly at the respectful koopa term, and smiled cryptically. "I live here."

"You live here?" Bowser glanced to his left, at a column covered with moldy parchment.

"That's right." It was hard to see his face in the dark. "I've lived here a long time. I used to be the priest of this church."

"This place, grandfather?" Bowser shook his head slowly. He thought the building was so damaged that it could not have been in service for at least forty years. He was so tired that he couldn't think clearly about it. He wanted badly to sleep.

He blinked once, twice, three times, his eyes closed longer each time, and when he opened his eyes after a fourth time, he saw something shocking. He thought he was looking at himself, big Bowser Koopa, standing a few feet away, eyes closed in contemplation. The sight was incredibly startling, but when Bowser blinked again, his eyes opened to simply see the old man, standing there with a kindly expression on his face.

The rain was fading now, and by the light of the moon piercing the white stained glass it was easier to see his face now— squinting eyes and gentle smile.

"You've been through a lot, haven't you, my son?" The old koopa tapped his cane. "Yes— God has given you a hard path."

Bowser said nothing.

"You are going away now." The old koopa continued. "You are searching for new lands. You are looking for places where no one knows your name, where the past can hurt you no longer. You are attempting a great escape— one that is difficult for one so well known as you."

Bowser nodded slightly.

"I will help you." The old koopa's cryptic smile returned. "I would like to try to do some good."

The koopa hobbled forward and reached one shaking hand out to lay, palm-flat, on Bowser's forehead.

"When you wake up, you will be changed. Your form will be different, and your step will be lighter. I will free you from the bulk of your past, and make your way slicker."

Bowser nodded, and his eyelids grew heavy. Regardless of his will, he was falling fast asleep.

"If you should ever wish to change back to your old form— return to this place. Return to the forest, and seek my church." He breathed deeply, shakily. "But now, you must go— Go, and live in good fortune."

The last words slurred in Bowser's mind, pieces of dream.

When he woke up he was sleeping in the hollow of a broken tree. The rains had ended, and it was a misty morning.

His face felt strange, and he wanted to wash it. Following the sound of bubbling water in the misty morning air, he found a clear brook tumbling between the trees, deep enough to hold fish, but small enough to be crossed with one well-timed leap.

Coming down to the water, he felt a strange sensation in his knees. Then it occurred to him— it was strange that he could kneel with any ease at all. These thoughts occurred as he cupped the clear water in his hands and splashed his face, and ended as the water poured down. He saw that he no longer held the form of the great, monstrous Bowser Koopa, but now that of a regular koopa troopa. He had been transformed.

At first he was scared, and thought of returning to that dream-like church to find answers. But he soon realized this was exactly what he wanted. To no longer be known as Bowser Koopa: the former terrorizer of the Mushroom Kingdom, former tyrant, former kidnapper of Princess Peach. Now he would be just another koopa. An anonymous traveler, who could make up his own past, wear a new face for the present, and have a chance at a new future.

Now he had escaped the chains of his past. His failures, his cruelties, his lost loves. Now he would be free.

So he believed.

* * *

**/A/N/: **This is a sequel to Verdant Twilight, but you don't need to read that to follow this story. Nuclear Phantasy is still going to be finished, check my profile for more information on that end.


	2. Chapter 2: What You Want

Chapter Two: What You Want

Yes, three years had passed. Sometimes it felt like only one had gone by. Bowser's day would be going by and he'd suddenly feel that sense of desolation, that feeling from years ago when he had decided to stop kidnapping Peach, and he had been forced to confront her lack of love for him. To confront his awful unrequited love, perhaps the ugliest thing in the entire world.

To be mature— to be a man, to sit down and accept that he couldn't have what he so desperately desired, and that he would never get it.

But most people don't have to go through that pain— Bowser thought angrily, maliciously. He thought it a lot back then, and now years later, every few days, maybe just once a month in better seasons, those dark thoughts would come back. How alone he believed himself! It seemed everybody got along just fine except for him, finding their loves as children or teenagers. Academy-age, if they were unlucky. But him…!

Well, he had found her, hadn't he? She just hadn't felt the same.

Was this a cosmic accident? How could this happen? How could he be so certainly infatuated with her, for years, but she could not return the same to him? What incredible, disastrous wheel of fate broke off and went rolling into the swamp of the universe, sinking into darkness? It was madness.

And he felt mad, insane, returning again to these thoughts years later. It had been five years since the end of the kidnappings and her flat refusal towards him, and three years since he had left the Mushroom Kingdom and his old body altogether. Still, he could not escape these thoughts.

"You need to find someone new," Wario stated explicitly, with that tone of obvious age-old wisdom, that kind that gets repeated again and again and again, yet never seems to help at all. "Go out more."

Bowser and Wario had become friends about two years after Bowser's transformation, and one year after Bowser had begun working in Sarasaland. Bowser had vaguely recognized Wario as one of Mario's cousins (or something) and Wario had just seen Bowser as an average-looking koopa, perhaps a bit taller than most. They both shared an air of detached frustration, covered with a veneer of peaceful acceptance, and this was perhaps what had initially bonded them as friends.

Before he came to Sarasaland, Wario had lost all of his money in a disastrous financial scheme that he refused to speak of. Even coming close to the subject made the veins in his eyes begin to pop out, and his breathing (not helped by his great weight) become labored. He had come to Sarasaland to participate in what he called a "nice piece of business", but sounded more like another business scheme to Bowser.

Besides for his obsessive desire for money, Wario was an alright guy, and a surprisingly good friend.

"Listen," Wario tapped the bar counter for another drink and turned to Bowser, "Rookie. It's like me and the wife, alright? I met her in a place like this, back in Mushroom. I saw her, knew she was the most beautiful creature I ever laid eyes on, bought her a few drinks, and BAM— we were talking like we had always known each other. Next thing I know we're outside, I'm showing her my new car— shiny, purple. This was back in the Ware days, ya know? But…" His drink arrived and he paused. "You get what I'm saying?"

Bowser had heard this story twice before. "Yes…"

"You gotta talk to them. That's it." Wario took a swig of his drink. "OK? Just get over the initial fear, and talk to them."

This was the same advice Bowser had heard on at least ten different occasions, and he was certain by this point that it was not helpful for him. He was not afraid of talking to women. His first year in his new body, sure— he had all sorts of ironic esteem-defacing thoughts about how he was just another thin koopa now, nothing interesting like before— but after some time, that had gone away, and he had talked to countless women. Mostly koopas, a few toads, one or two humans, and a couple of Sarasaland-types.

Bowser did not know if most people's dating troubles were as simple as not saying "hello" to the opposite sex, but it would seem to be the case from most of the advice he heard and read. If that was the case, he was greatly envious of "most people", and at the same time irritated by the shortness of the ditch they had to cross. His issue was deeper, and without solution— an inherent lack of romantic interest in every woman he came across.

Was it the ideal of Peach that haunted him? He didn't actually specifically think of _her _that much anymore. But abandoning his thoughts of her seemed to have made him lose any feelings of love at all. It was like his mind was saying if he couldn't have _her_, he'd have _no one at all_. It was such that he could meet many people and travel to many places, but nothing would ever progress romantically. There was something insidious inside of him that forever destroyed his attempts at intimacy.

Not his desires, however. Not his thoughts and wishes. He could keep wanting what he couldn't have. Before it was Peach, now it was the vaguer idea of simply having someone to love. Whatever the case, he couldn't have it.

Ever.

_Get fucked! _Bowser thought to himself.

It was little sudden thoughts like those that made him believe there was literally a war between different groups happening inside his very own head.

The Romantics vs. the Aromantics. The Romantics want love. The Aromantics want… nothing? Just to screw over the Romantics?

_I come back to the one who calls my name out / What you want don't you know that I can smile_

"Just be brave, man." Wario clapped a hand on Bowser's shoulder. Overhead the bar speakers blared out some song. "Just do it. ...JUST DO IT! Like the shoe says, right? Wahaha. Now is the only moment that exists."

"I hate hearing stuff like that." Bowser grumbled. He was sick of hearing advice that didn't address his problems.

"Yah, well…" Wario finished his drink. "You gotta do something. Alright." He pushed his glass towards the edge of the counter, near to the bartender. "I gotta head back to work."

Bowser raised his brow. "It's 8pm."

"Ha, late night!" Wario grinned. "Things are getting exciting. The company's gonna go public soon. Everybody in Chai is going to want a share. I'm telling you, you'll want to get in soon! You'll regret it later."

Bowser hated that idea: regret. He had regretted so much all those years ago that he didn't think he was capable of regretting at all anymore. How hard he had tried to just make himself happy. He had told himself never to regret anything again. If someone had tried as hard as he had just to live, then truly, regrets were meaningless.

"It's gonna be great." Wario pressed. "Much monies."

"I'm thinking about it," Bowser mumbled distractedly.

"Well, you don't have a lot of time left." Wario tapped on his watch. "And neither do I. Gotta bounce."

He was gone, out the door and up the stairs. For being such a large man, he could move very fast when he was on the money trail. Bowser honestly admired that— having such a clear goal, and having so much energy to work closer towards that goal.

It was something Bowser used to have. And it was that, that kind of thought that made it hurt so much. He had once lived in a heaven, a life where he was consistently happy. He had lost it, and he could not tell of any possible way to get it back. He wasn't even sure when that happy time was exactly— he knew that he was endlessly dissatisfied and still unhappy to some extent because he was constantly comparing the deficient present to that golden period in the past.

When could it have been? Peach had never loved him. It was probably a time earlier on, when he was madly in love with her, and in that madness, he believed, absolutely, that she must love him back. That that look of fear was really one of delight, that sailing away from the Mushroom Kingdom in the clown copter, him laughing and her shivering— shivering with delight, surely!—was really the most beautiful way that anything could be.

But that had all been a lie. An illusion. Who had created that lie? He supposed he must have, but he, HE, the one who called himself Bowser, was not aware of doing so. He had not been aware that his definition of the best possible existence was a lie, a reality that could not exist.

No…

Oh, now the darkness was laying over his heart again. Here he was, sitting at the bar counter alone, staring into a black, frankly morbid looking drink. This wasn't beer. He didn't remember ordering this- at least three beers had passed, and some part of him must have been wanting to try something new.

He pointed down at the inky concoction. "What is this?"

"Froggie Drink"

"Oh." It tasted as bad as it sounded.

The scariest idea of all was that Luigi's prophecy had come true. Luigi, lost in a darkness longer and deeper than Bowser's, had said that someday Bowser would lose the ability to love. That his heart would be gone, and then he would treasure nothing.

Was this it? Was this what Bowser was approaching, if not what he was already trapped in?

No. No, he couldn't believe that. Things were better now.


	3. Chapter 3: Wild West

Chapter Three: Wild West

Bowser worked as a teacher. It was a funny thing to think, but it was the truth. In the past, Bowser more than anyone would have found the idea ridiculous. He, a school teacher? He would not have openly admitted it five years ago, but he had thought he himself was stupid. What could he teach anyone besides how to be a king— and a fearful, mismanaging tyrant at that? And dealing with children—? No, no, the idea was crazy. Bowser couldn't be good with children. People thought the koopalings were his children, but that was just a rumor. They were orphans, adopted and raised by the Koopa military instead of him.

Bowser had given up on being able to predict the future even to a year ahead. He could never have imagined himself a teacher.

It was only after a year of working manual labor in Sarasaland that Bowser had the opportunity to become a teacher. There was a posting on a local bulletin board in the small town he worked in, advertising for foreigners from outside of Sarasaland to teach Mushroom language and literature. Although the Sarasans had their own language, the Mushroom language was growing increasingly popular throughout the lands, and almost every Sarasan spoke both their own language and the Mushroom language.

At the job interview, Bowser's love of books (a mad passion that had begun after giving up Peach) proved fruitful, as his range of knowledge earned him a coveted job in the province's largest city, the capital of Sarasaland itself— Chai.

So Bowser moved to Chai. Soon after, he met Wario.

Chai was a modern city, similar in development to any large place in the Mushroom Kingdom, or in the better regions of the former Koopa Kingdom.

In living, Bowser didn't particularly need much. He had been a king once, sure, but after his depressive episode, (and realizing he'd never have Peach) he'd found he was much less interested in the material world. He was satisfied with an apartment, cheap food, the occasional drink, and books. He was not interested in buying what most people spent money on, such as new shells, vehicles, or the expensive technological devices that were becoming so popular. He saw no real use in those things. He had a perfectly fine shell, there were busses and trains that ran all over Chai, and he had decided that a basic cell phone was all he really needed.

The purpose of the more expensive objects he recognized primarily as adornments to make oneself more attractive to others. The individual pleasure they bought was momentary, and was not worth the money that could be better left to savings or the further purchasing of books.

(And it had to be remarked that at one time he had had many fine things in the moment, and he had seen how, regardless of other external circumstances, the feeling of the loss of what he loved had turned all else to dust.)

But— he was better now.

Along the way, since coming from the Mushroom Kingdom, he had been focusing on escaping his depression. This had been a piece-by-piece process, fueled by books, intuition, and at times what felt like bouts of sharp despair. The books provided new ideas, the intuition suggested general application, and the bouts of despair were the bursts of energy, the snap of the whip, that kept him improving. Without those sudden seizures, like the sky was cracking open, he would not have kept working to improve.

He decided at some point that this was something of a great separator between peoples. If someone is easily satisfied, that they feel little pain, they will not improve at all. Those who are struck, and cannot stand their situation, must keep moving. Presumably there was an end to this—

A good end, he meant.

_There's a world where you can… All that you lost...you get back… And all that you want… you can have_

Yes, even now that he had effectively removed Peach from his heart, the darkness of her loss was replaced with the darkness of an indeterminate nature. A vague abyss, a formless gouge. Sad love songs weeped for the loss of the loved, but Bowser did not subscribe to that pain anymore. He could not say he loved anyone, and he could not say now that he had lost a love, for Peach's loss carried no pain-energy with its thought. She was gone. So was he, effectively.

In the place of Bowser was this koopa, and this koopa was without any past at all.

No, that wasn't the truth. Bowser's past life remained as pictures in his memory, but the pictures lacked all psychic energy, feelingless, so that they were like faded, pinned-up butterflies in a display case.

He could say he was better off now because he could focus on the present, and he did find pleasantries in the present. This was one of the important ideas he had found through his readings, and so he worked hard to worship the immediate moment. The past and the future did not exist. All was present, where past was memory created by the mind, and the future was imagination created by the mind. If one remembered that, they would know they only had the present. And in the present, this ever-thin sliver, there was no pain.

Still, Bowser could not stop the "sky from cracking open"... like a vast shape rising from the deep, there was no direction or control of it.

It didn't help that, in the midst of all this, he was becoming obsessed with women. And not in the natural way— as mentioned previously, he did not have a real sexual desire for them, but for _the idea of_ _having _a sexual desire for them, and _having _them. He could see the idea of what a "correct life" was, and what made people happy— it was having a good life partner, or a healthy (frequent) sexual life. This was what he believed, and though sometimes he doubted this theory (as he doubted all things at certain times) his mind returned to it again and again. So, when he was struck by sudden despair, and wondering why everything was going wrong (and this general feeling, which would just come along, would then begin to be supported by "facts" his mind would begin to compile) he would blame all of it primarily on his lack of a female companion.

But he could never return to Peach.

No, there had to be some other one out there. Or, there had to be some way that Bowser could become especially fluent with women, so that he could weave in and out among them like some snake and collect the apples from the gardens. He was consistently defeated in both missions, however, and he began to wonder what was missing. If he tried many different things, read many different books, and thought about many different ideas, he would have to strike on the solution to all of this. However, there was no end to it— three years of this was driving him loopy, until finally one day absolutely knackered to the depths under drink, he declared to a Chai bar full of strangers that he was "done", and then crashed to the floor asleep. When he woke up, propped up sloppily if not somewhat kindly on a chair outside, his hungover mind was still enshrined with the understanding of what that deep self meant: He was done with this chase, and in fact, he was done thinking and worrying at all.

This was interesting because the plan to "stop thinking" was one he had already decided on three years ago, but had consistently failed to follow. It was unclear if this was because it was so difficult for him, or that he was he afraid of what would really happen if he "stopped thinking". But by now he had come across so many books that had encouraged the same idea (often spiritual) and had become so mired in doubts and frustrations regarding things he was not sure he even really cared about (which approximately tripled the confusing doubts and frustrations) that finally, finally some part of his mind had said "I quit": this had come bubbling up to the surface, declared at the end of a drunken tirade, and survived to the next day when Bowser stumbled home through the streets of Chai, walking lightly and looking at the city scenery all around.

So now he could laugh again. When he talked with others, he did not worry about what would happen next. He did not worry about his disguise being blown. He did not care about love, or what would happen next year, or whether his life had any purpose. He seemed to really be fine, and it all relied on the paradox of not thinking, which really meant thinking as little as possible. Thoughts still came, of course, but they were unwilled helpful things, and far more useful than what he had pondered on previously.

He could now really exist in the present, where Peach did not exist, where his new goals (so far unmentioned) were no longer ideas that he impatiently obsessed over, and where what he lacked did not matter, and he noticed more of what he did have. It seemed to him that now he was finally living the life of a "normal person", and given some time, he would sink into the obscurity that others seemed to celebrate as the process of being "an adult".


	4. Chapter 4: Loomer (Talk with Wario 1)

Chapter Four: Loomer

It was not too long after his mind had finally begun to quiet down that he saw Luigi. This is to say, he saw Luigi for the first time since he had said goodbye to the green-hatted man, comatose in a hospital bed.

Luigi should still have been there, as far as Bowser was aware. Bowser hated the news, and generally avoided reading or watching anything like it, but he should have at least heard something in the conversations of the people around him about Luigi waking up. Luigi had been a hero at one point, and it was known that he and the ruler of Sarasaland, Princess Daisy, had had a relationship at another point. It didn't even matter if Bowser was not fluent in Sarasan— some mention of "Luigi" would have sufficed to suggest the news.

But Bowser had heard nothing. So it was especially startling when he turned a corner of Chai's dark streets, looking for the way home from some anonymous bar, and saw a figure scurry away— a shadow bearing a great resemblance to Luigi. Tall, lanky, wearing a hat.

Perhaps Bowser would have forgotten it. It would be easy to chalk up the sighting to the influence of alcohol. But then the crimes began.

Nothing too shocking. They were a series of robberies, of small convenience stores, little roadside food carts. Only at night— and it was reported that in the dark, all that could be seen of the perpetrator was that he was tall, with a hat and mustache, and likely a human.

Bowser found out about these reports one hazy morning as he walked to school, passing a newspaper cart carrying a paper in a language that he could read.

There was no mention of "Luigi" anywhere in the article, simply hard observations about the criminal. No one considered it was Luigi. Therefore, Luigi had to still be asleep, back in the Mushroom Kingdom hospital.

So, Bowser still could have forgotten about it. What did he really care? He had other concerns. He had his obsession with women, he had to think about what he was teaching next, and he had to think about his odd ambitions. This isn't to say these were things he stressed over, but that if he spent his time not stressing and generally not pushing himself to think about anything, he returned to those same three realms of thought most of the time.

The past was past, including his ugly "friendship" (if that was even the right word) with Luigi.

But twice more he saw that strange shadow creeping around the edges of the alleyways, and the following mornings (now he specifically kept his eyes open) he would see the latest reports about another store robbed, another lone person walking at night stopped, their purses or wallets forced from them.

The police were on a heightened alert, but no curfews were seriously suggested. The people of Chai worked hard during the day and partied hard at night. They would not accept a culling of their fun, past attempts had even resulted in small riots. It didn't matter if some fast, slippery criminal was on the loose— the people would take their chances.

Bowser would take his chances as well. Not that he was afraid. What could he be seriously afraid of anymore? He may as well have already died when he gave up Peach. Or he may as well have already died when he woke up in that hospital and left the Mushroom Kingdom behind for good. Or, still, he may as well have died the night that he declared he was "done", and woke up like he was living in a dream, now just "playing his role" forward, just doing things without a strong care. How many times had he lost all that he thought he was?

Reflecting on the power of these mental deaths almost made one believe in the immortality of the soul— for is this what it means to see the soul, when everything else about a person, even their physical selves, can change so completely and fundamentally? Whatever we thought we were in one moment, we were not, and after we peel away all the layers that we made for ourselves, we find nothing but an inscrutable swirl of existence.

Bowser didn't need to or want to consciously think that. He only needed to walk down the dark streets of Chai and think about either his next drink or his bed depending on what time of night it was.

So it was that Bowser did not yet meet Luigi's shadow, but instead the Princess Daisy.

The ruler of Sarasaland was in disguise. Leaving her palace on certain nights, she went undercover into the streets of her capital city and sought adventure. What was adventure? Many nights out drinking, many lovers, many fast sexual flings that if became public knowledge, would cause an untold number of scandals. To be direct, her sexual appetite was her main source of willpower (as it is for many people), so it was greatly unfortunate that she should happen to become infatuated with the disguised Bowser Koopa, who was in no ways to fit to give her what she wanted.

The topic of Princess Daisy will be returned to in greater detail later, let it be said now that around the third week into the L Crimes (as they were later known) Bowser, as a seemingly ordinary koopa, met Daisy in a bar. Somewhere, some dark corner— anywhere, who cares. The conversation turned to astronomy, and Daisy, interested in the subject herself, returned Bowser's talk with a mild relish. She developed a strange crush for the tall, somewhat gloomy koopa in that dark bar somewhere, anywhere.

So there they were, two people in disguise. The woman wanted the man, but could not take him as far as she wanted because she was waiting for him to take the initiative (as is necessary in the general sexual legal system). The man did not feel much for the woman, though he admired her for all the reasons one could admire a friend. He could not count on lust to carry him anywhere, and so he took no initiative. There, stalemate was reached.

Still, Daisy was outgoing, and could have pushed things further, but she could sense Bowser's lack of sexual interest. She was left with a desire for him that could not proceed. He was left with his regular sense of confusion in the sexual arena.

This is all to say: they met, they talked, they walked away in different directions.

What, is such a thing even possible? Men and women who meet each other at night must devour each other like candies! No other end is possible— that is the regular thought of society. Perhaps there are far more quiet nights, for far more people than most would expect.

Yes, Bowser decided, I am certainly asexual. There is no other answer. He had loved before, but the rejection had evidently killed his heart. What a funny thing. A story it seems no one had ever told before, of a person so infatuated with another who felt nothing for them back that it broke the former person, and left the latter pristine.

The truth was that the story has been told before— but mostly in hushed whispers, or with a happy ending quickly tacked on afterwards. The spirited bunch that consume romance stories are not interested in Bowser's kind.

Meanwhile, the shadow stalking the streets of Chai, formerly just to rob, was now killing for the first time. He hid the body very well (for hiding was his greatest strength) in the deep twisting corridors of Chai's endless alleyways, in some long-forgotten dumpster. He then bolted— and it was recalled later by a drunk sitting hidden that the murderer's lanky legs moved like the horrible limbs of a puppet. The drunk toad thought it a nightmare. But when the body in the dumpster was found later and the Chai police force were on the hunt, the toad admitted through alcohol-dulled lips what little he had seen.

That was three days after the murder. That same night the body was found, Bowser and Wario met again for drinks, this time at Dark Land: the old Koopa Kingdom-style bar that Bowser had found some time ago.

Wario threw back a shot, a concoction called a Soft Shell.

"Haaa!" He gasped, then burst out a dark chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Bowser asked.

"Ha, I haven't had one of those since I last visited the Koopa Kingdom! And this… just doesn't match up!"

Bowser shifted in his seat, raising his brow. "When was that?"

"Ah, a little over a year ago now. You're from there, right?"

Bowser slowly sucked in his breath. "Yes… But I haven't been there for a long time."

"Yah, I figured." Wario chuckled. "You strike me as an old Koopa Kingdom type. You lived under Bowser's tyranny, and you left before things got better."

"Mm."

"Let me tell you, things are looking up there since the place merged with the Mushroom Kingdom. The old King Bowser didn't know anything about agriculture, or business at all. The money was not flowing! It was all about capturing Princess Peach. Naturally, the place was a dump."

Bowser said nothing.

"Ehh." Wario cocked his head. "I don't know how you felt about him."

"Who?"

"Your old King Bowser. He wasn't very popular… I suppose the fact you left the Koopa Kingdom says it all, eh? But I kind of feel sorry for him. Guy was obsessed about a lady who was never going to love him back. Then he gives up, and gets into a nasty funk for two years… before he disappears altogether."

"..."

"Now there was a guy who was rich… he had it all… and he wasn't happy! Crazy."

Bowser ordered another beer and leaned forward on the counter. "What would you have done if you had been him?"

"Me? Wa ha ha. I'd never fall for a lady like he did."

He paused.

"My wife's wonderful. Couldn't live without her. But… I'd never keep going after a girl who already turned away from me. You know what that's called? One-itis. Deadly."

"...One-itis…" Bowser felt a little sick. "OK, but what if he was truly in love with her?"

Wario slapped his hand on the counter. "Ah, that's a great one. Love."

He grabbed his mug and poured his beer back, slurping at the amber-colored liquid with a lively greed. Bowser admired the gusto.

"Haaa…" Wario wiped the back of a hand across his mouth, and his face darkened. "Well… you hear about what they found this morning?"

Bowser sighed. It seemed the conversation about love was over. "No, what did they find?"

"A body!" Wario's eyes widened. "A murder! And it was just some old lady!"

Bowser's stomach sunk. "Here? Near here?"

"That's right. And it seems like it was that thief, too."

_Tiptoe down to the lonely places. Where you going now don't turn around_

"The thief…"

"The tall one, with the mustache. That weirdo was running around, robbing left and right every day, until the murder— and now he's disappeared."

Bowser swallowed. It felt like the room was spinning.


	5. Chapter 5: Time Go (Talk with Wario 2)

Chapter Five: Time Go

"You okay?" Wario tapped his mug on the counter. "You look pale."

"Ugh… it's just…" He could feel some sweat beading on his forehead. "A murder…"

"Yah, real nasty business." Wario shook his head. "I wonder who this weirdo is."

Bowser stood up, his head swimming.

"I've uh… I gotta piss."

He washed his face several times in the bathroom sink and stared at the strange koopa in the mirror, his fingers lightly pulling at the bottom of his eyelids. His eyes were drooping a little— probably from fatigue.

This was affecting him more than he expected. So what if some stranger got murdered? You heard about similar things happening every day in places like Tostarena and New Donk City. Chai was safer, but it was still a big city. A murder should not be so surprising.

No, it was… it was the fact that the murderer was tall, and lanky, and was a human, and had a mustache. It was the idea that it could be Luigi, Bowser's old "friend". And it was the idea that he had come here, to where Bowser was, and was pursuing him. Was trying to get his attention. Was starting to kill people, to get his attention.

Why? Why?

He was imagining things, surely. It couldn't be Luigi. How would Luigi know where he was? And why would Luigi be killing people? Had his nihilism completely destroyed his sense of morality? Even if that was true, what was the point? If he wanted to talk to Bowser, he could just… if he knew Bowser was here, then he could surely find Bowser himself, and talk to him.

And (and) this was all besides the fact that Luigi was in the Mushroom Kingdom, deep in a coma.

Bowser gripped his head in his hands and shook his head. It wasn't Luigi. This had nothing to do with him.

And proving that was really a simple matter.

When he returned to the bar's counter, Wario was gripping a fresh beer and looking around. He didn't see Bowser approach.

Bowser sat down and sighed. "Wario?"

Wario flinched a little and swiveled in his seat. "Oh, hey."

"Do you keep up with Mushroom Kingdom news?"

"Huh? Eh? Oh yeah. A little. I mostly watch the stocks."

"Ok." Bowser swallowed. "Have you heard anything about Luigi recently? Mario's brother?"

"Luigi?" Wario's lips parted, and he made an ugly grin. "Heh."

"What's that about?"

"Luigi." Wario shook his head. "I never liked that miserable bastard. Never did. Something happened a long time ago…"

Wario's right hand lay slack on the countertop, his fingers extending and retracting several times with the mechanical nature of unconscious movement.

"Eh." He shook his head again. "Bad stuff, bad stuff."

He dug into his large pants pocket. A moment later he pulled out two cigars.

"Want one?"

"Oh, no." Bowser grimaced. He didn't smoke. He used to have fire breath, but he had never liked smoke itself.

"Yah." Wario put the cigar between his lips and pulled a lighter from elsewhere. "Anyway," He said between his grit teeth, "I ain't heard nothing about that guy. Not since they found him trying to do himself in a few years ago. Put himself into a permanent sleep. His brother set him up in a hospital, gave him a nice bed…"

Wario raised his lighter to the end of his cigar and clicked it several times. On the third click the flame flared up.

"If I had been the one in charge there, I would've let him have what he wanted."

Bowser flinched.

"That's… rather cruel."

"Huh!" Wario belted. "You don't know anything about him. Well…" He thought. "You know he used to beat up your kind when the Mushroom Kingdom and Koopa Kingdom were going at it, yeah? I didn't think you'd be so warm to him."

"I'm not, but…" Bowser stared down at the counter. "I don't know if he should die for that…"

"It's not even that personal… though it is personal." Wario puffed out a cloud of smoke. "I believe in a person's right to suicide. If you're an adult, if you've thought things over, you weighed the pros and cons, you know things are shit, you know they ain't getting better… then you have the right to leave. To deny people that right is to deny them freedom. Everyone should have the choice to go out, if they choose to."

"I don't know…" Bowser trailed, though he would have immediately agreed a few years ago.

"What? What don't you know?" Wario puffed a little harder, and his eyes widened. "What do you want to say?"

"People aren't… rational when they think about suicide." These words were falling out of his mouth, even though he knew they didn't apply to Luigi's case. "They don't just weigh pros and cons… I think it's often… a matter of the moment…"

It was like he had completely forgotten his train of thoughts three years ago. It was like he was arguing against a different person, a different viewpoint he had never had.

How many lives had he lived?

"That bastard Luigi was clever, I tell you. You didn't know him." Wario's eyes were bulging a little. "He could have written you a nice little essay arguing for his death. Hell, I suppose he did."

Bowser blinked. "What?"

"The weirdo had a suicide note written up. Who knows what was on it— a few reporters found out about it and the news spread in some newspapers, but the Mushroom royalty snatched the note up and hid it before anyone could read it. I guarantee you it was a nice, cold, rational piece describing in detail all the wrongs he felt he'd gone through."

Bowser shivered. He swallowed some beer.

"I tell you," Wario took another drink himself, "You didn't know him."

He finished his drink, and snuffed out his half-finished cigar on the counter.

"Alright." He stood up. "My turn."

He waddled towards the restroom.

When he came back, he was looking mirthful again.

"Say, why don't you try to pick a lady up tonight?"

Bowser nearly spat out his beer.

"What?"

"Come on. Chatting's nice and all, but that's not the real reason you come to a bar."

It is for me, Bowser thought distantly.

"How about…" Wario's finger circled in the air, then dropped to point towards another corner of the bar. "Over there."

Sitting around a table were a group of three koopa and two human women. They were all excitedly talking about something.

"Take your pick, take your pick," Wario drawled. He seemed to have entered a new phase of drunkenness since heading to the restroom. "Hmm… a really nice bunch."

Bowser looked over at the group of women and suppressed a sigh. They were all very pretty, but he was not actually interested in any of them. Besides that, tiny wordless criticisms like gnats were ascending in his mind, pointing out small flaws related to each of the girls. These thoughts arose without any direction or choice at all.

"What if I took one of the human ladies, and you had a koopa? Double dash it?" Wario chuckled. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm married."

"I don't want to do this." Bowser turned back to the counter. "I'm not doing it. I just want to talk."

"Oh, come on." Wario exclaimed. "This is exactly what I'm talking about! Your fear of women!"

"I am not afraid of women." Bowser sighed again and brought a hand up to his forehead. "...I'm just not interested in them."

"Weh?" Wario jerked back dramatically. "Have I been trying to help you, and you've been into men this whole time? Why didn't you say something? We're in the completely wrong bar! Wa ha ha ha!"

"I'm not into men," Bowser said slowly. The alcohol was freeing his tongue, he felt like he could speak more clearly about this now. "I'm asexual."

"Asexual!" Wario laughed again.

"Yeah, that's right." Bowser shrugged. He spoke calmly, pushed on by a clear-cut sense of honesty he felt. The valley forward was carved for him. "I'm asexual. I'm not attracted to anyone. Sexually."

"Well, who knows?" Wario shrugged. "Maybe you are asexual."

"Yeah." Bowser tapped his fingers on the counter. "So what was so funny about that?"

"I just didn't expect it." Wario was still grinning a little.

"You know what? Just three days ago, I had an amazing conversation with a woman at a place near here. It was deep, it was interesting. And you know what? We didn't hook up. Nothing led us to hook up, I didn't feel impelled to hook up, and she didn't make any moves. That really sealed it for me."

"Yah?" Wario scratched his chin. "What color was her shell?"

"She was a human," Bowser replied witheringly.

"Heh. Oh." Wario was glancing over again at the group of women in the corner. "So you'd want one of the human ladies then, eh…? Assuming you weren't asexual…"

"It doesn't really matter to me what species they are." Bowser said, but he sensed a second later that that was a lie. He wasn't sure what exactly was the lie.

"It doesn't matter at all, 'cause you don't really want any of em!" Wario nodded his head, satisfied at the retort.

Maybe that was the lie.

"Whatever." Bowser's eyes searched for the bartender. He wanted another drink. The beer tasted good tonight.


	6. Chapter 6: Another Morning Stoner

Chapter Six: Another Morning Stoner

By the time Bowser woke up the next day in his apartment, head foggy with a blanketing hangover, he had come to the conclusion that he needed to find the shadow lurking the streets of Chai as soon as possible.

It was Saturday. He could go out late again into Chai's streets that night. His hangover wasn't so bad (he seemed mostly impervious to them, he almost never got actual headaches) so he'd be able to handle a few drinks. If he walked around enough he might encounter the shadow again, and find out for sure what was going on.

Wario didn't actually seem to know if something had happened to Luigi. If Luigi had woken up from his coma, and escaped the hospital, it was possible that Peach and Mario would keep the news from even getting out.

Regardless of the truth, Bowser had to know what was going on. He knew he had to do something to find out.

He decided that until the evening, he'd work on some of his poems.

He still liked to write poems. Now he was more invested than ever in the idea of writing "serious" poetry. He found the act of creation one of the most guaranteed ways to feel good— scratch a bit of pencil on paper, enter that state of flow where each piece of the creating comes naturally, step-by-step, and You, as a conscious individual, tend to disappear in favor of the Art. He did not consider his work pretentious, but he was at the same time bothered by what he found when he talked to others about poetry.

In the past three years, he had joined two different poetry groups. One had been outside of Sarasaland, a few months before he had come and taken that labor job. He had been getting more invested in poetry and the comfort of creation during his travels, and wanted to compare his work with others. In this first writing group he joined, he was the youngest member. The others were much older in age, but they wrote poems of about the same quality that he did. This did not seem to bother any of them. They were simply a small community, having fun with the craft.

But Bowser had ambitions. He wanted to write the best possible poems that he could— to learn as much about the craft as possible, and continually improve what he wrote. Poetry, as any art, is subjective to some degree, but it could not be denied that certain works of poetry throughout the ages were considered "greater" works. And Bowser believed, in reading these poems, that one could directly sense their greater Power and Mystery.

He was not academic about these ideas— he would speak of Power and Mystery, but would not analyze and dissect. He sensed an ideal of Quality, some product of "better art" that could provide a kind of sense of spirituality, sometimes what could almost be revelations. He had a lot of trouble believing in organized religion and their great masses of passive churchgoers, but he could directly sense a higher light through reading certain books and writing certain things. This was a spirituality he could understand.

_Why is it I don't feel the same- Are my longings to be blamed?_

So when it came to that first poetry group, Bowser was quickly disheartened. After a few weeks, he realized that most of the members, despite some claims, were not truly intent on becoming better poets. The material they read on their own time was not very good, and it could be felt just by talking to them that they lacked a certain curiosity (or something) for the world. Some very skilled writers spoke of "natural talent". Bowser did not want to believe in such a thing, but he struggled to articulate what exactly the other poets he spoke to lacked. He wanted to believe that there was some certain idea or quality that if they chose to try to get, they could potentially find, and so become "great artists".

He supposed, to himself, that he had once had no talent, and had been an idiot— and yet was so different now, that somewhere along the way, he must have found that secret quality. Perhaps it was even just the spirit to "never give up".

After about a month with this group, Bowser realized he wanted a mentor. He wanted to be around poets and writers that he knew was better than he was. Being around these much older people with similar levels of talent was just depressing.

So (and for other reasons, too) he moved on. That was when he first came to Sarasaland, and worked out in the fields before later getting a menial position in a factory. He sought for talent or even just plain interest in the arts in the country town he was in, but that was a largely futile attempt. Those who did write in the factory had even less interest in improving themselves than those in the other writing group. Their subject was the concerns of their life, and their lives (viewed from Bowser's once-kingly perspective) were very small. They had little interest for what was outside of their town, and their poems and writings read as worse, rather direct imitations of things they had seen elsewhere. This was a natural stage in the writing process, but the writers of the fields and factory had no interest in criticism. They wrote for themselves, when and if they wrote at all.

And that was fine. But that attitude was not the kind Bowser wanted to be near.

So he sought to move to a large city. Cities were always where innovation came from, whether technological or artistic. It was practically a mathematical law that the greater the number of people clumped together, the more innovations would come out of that community. Somewhere along his journey, Bowser had become determined to try to write the best possible thing he could. Naturally, if he went to where most of the great work was coming from, he would have a much better chance.

(Let it be quickly remarked that Bowser did not just write haikus anymore… by his third year of journeying and his second year in Sarasaland, he had experimented at least a bit with many of the major forms of poetry, including free verse, which he had taken to the most.)

And yes, Bowser did find in Chai greater artistic energy than elsewhere. He likely would have noticed such work in the Koopa Kingdom or in the Mushroom Kingdom when he had lived in those places, but the idea of producing "serious art" or just any art beyond his private haikus had not occurred to him at that time. As such, coming to Chai was a huge breath of fresh air. Everywhere there were cafes, with people at work on various creative projects.

However, the actual poetry community was not so great. There were two major issues.

First was that the serious writers of Chai, being Sarasans, wrote in the Sarasan language. Bowser did not know Sarasan, so he could not seriously interact with this community of works or the authors of the community.

Second was that the foreigners from outside of Sarasaland, such as those from the Mushroom Kingdom, former Koopa Kingdom, or elsewhere, were not serious about writing. Many were young people who had come to Sarasaland merely to have a good time. This mostly meant drinking alcohol. Bowser worked to organize a writing group in Chai, open to poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Only a few people ended up coming to the several meetings that followed in the months after. Half of the comers were as old as those in Bowser's previous writing group, and half were young. The older people did not have a great deal of skill, and again were not interested in improving. The younger people had some good ideas, but almost never wrote anything. In general, however, the problem was that not many people came.

So Bowser worked on his own. He did not blame anyone for how his attempts at finding a writing community were turning out— he felt that his own ambitions were unnaturally strong. They were his new reason for existence, because love had not worked out.

In the rough times, before he had finally stopped thinking, he was able to drag himself to wherever he needed to go by thinking about his purpose: to ultimately make some "great work". All the previous struggles would make it worth it. And even if not— it was his reason. He was pushed on to fulfill it. He certainly did not have any person to live for.

Once he stopped thinking, that whole concern went away. He did not need a reason to live. He did not need to make great art. He did not need anyone to impress. Everything was fine. Everything was good.

But now. Now there was a murderer on the loose. They might be killing because of him. And they could be trying to reach him.

These thoughts flowed and spun, and they provided some odd material for a poem. The final product wasn't too bad.

Back in the present, Bowser put down his pencil and went to his apartment window. Outside, the sky had turned a warm orange. It was time he went out.

Where would he go? It didn't matter to him. Endless drinking holes, spots in the wall. This maze of streets was hypnotizing.

Wario would be busy tonight, so Bowser wouldn't be seeing him.

He slipped outside and checked his phone. It was another friend's birthday today— and they were celebrating with a great pouring of drinks. That sounded like a good time.

Bowser walked for several minutes, turned several corners, and at the right address climbed a flight of stairs.


	7. Chapter 7: Super Fade (The Party 1)

Chapter Seven: Super Fade

The bar was crammed full of people— coming up to the counter, speaking in corners, and hanging out on a balcony outside. The warm sound of evening chatting filled the area. Through the speakers overhead a song played.

_Who's in a bunker? Who's in a bunker? Women and children first, and the children first, and the children_

A tall toad near the entrance gestured for Bowser to stretch out his hand. He stamped it, leaving an insignia of a mushroom in red ink on the back of his hand.

"Free drinks for three hours," The toad explained.

Well, this might be interesting, Bowser thought.

He headed straight for the counter and ordered his first drink of the night.

Equipped with half of his first beer in a cheap red cup, he wandered into the crowd, looking for familiar faces. He took a sip. This had to be a less expensive beer if they were handing it out for free, yet it tasted pretty good. Maybe Bowser's taste buds had finally come to love alcohol. Yes, now he was truly an adult.

(He was an adult. But he still found himself obsessed with this idea that he had never really grown up at all. Some people said this was a good thing. It was probably necessary to create art, to have that subjective fluidity, in any case.)

A familiar, but not entirely pleasant voice, hit Bowser's ear. They were calling his 'name'.

He turned to see Pauline. She was wearing an expensive-looking dress, and stood close beside a cross-looking toad.

"Pauline…" Bowser trailed.

"Hee hee, funny to see you here. You know Vivian too?"

"Yeah. We're both teachers, so…"

"Oh…" Pauline nodded, but she looked vaguely uncomfortable.

The expression passed like a bird on the wing. Pauline nuzzled up against the toad beside her. "Say, have you met my friend?"

The toad with the sour expression didn't ring any bells.

"No."

"I'm Toad." The toad stepped forward and he and Bowser shook hands.

"Toad…" Bowser trailed.

"I'm not THE Toad, obviously," Toad's words were laced with bitterness, "I'm his younger cousin."

Bowser nodded. If THE Toad was to be anywhere, it'd probably be in the Mushroom Kingdom, dealing with paperwork.

"Yeah," Pauline nuzzled against Toad, and stared at Bowser with provocative eyes.

I know what you're doing, Bowser thought irritatedly. He swallowed the rest of his beer.

"Ah shoot," He shook the empty plastic cup, "Time for a refill. Be right back."

He turned around and headed back to the counter.

He hated sexual/romantic games. By this point, he thoroughly hated them. He found that life was simpler and generally better the more that people told the truth, and the kind of little gambits and tricks that people were constantly playing against each other in relation to the bedroom was such a horrible tangle of lies and half-deceptions that it all made him sick to think about. Back when he had been trying the dating game more seriously, he had found himself the victim of the games most of the time.

He believed that most people didn't mind the games or accepted them because, at least a quarter of the time, they were successful in them. If you were almost never successful in them, you would have absolutely no appreciation for them. If you had been used as a tool: Girl is jealous of Boy, (worse, Woman is jealous of Man) so Girl sidles up close to Bowser, to try to make Boy jealous. She pretends all these little acts of affection on Bowser, to get someone else's attention, someone else who doesn't care about her. So Girl doesn't care about Bowser, and Boy doesn't care about Girl, and Bowser, realizing what nasty machination is playing out, loses all care for anyone in the equation.

If at least some nights, you went home with someone, you would say that this game was ultimately worth it. That it eventually (with enough efforts, and reptitious little movements and meaningless words) paid off with a night of fucking. This was why all sorts of people continued to lie about all sorts of pointless things, Bowser figured, because they had been trained by the pursuit and reward of sex, that in that game it was useful, if you were good at it, to lie and deceive, and so that natural sense of utility leaked into the rest of your life.

And because this wasn't nonsensical enough, once Bowser had decided himself asexual, and had realized he really had no interest in these people, he had noticed women becoming more attracted to him.

So it was: that he had never been sexually attracted to women (besides Peach, maybe), he wanted to be successful with women out of an existential desire, had failed, now did not pursue anyone, but had the existential desire still (which he would not act on, because it had and would always fail, probably because he had no _sexual desire_, which the other party firmly required) and there would be women still interested in him, who would be hurt and sad that he did not return their advances, such as they were.

What a delightful thing this all was!

_This is really happening, happening_

He had tried breaking through the game a few times, for instance telling a woman straight out: I think you're beautiful. The straight truth. She was, obviously, beautiful. He was interested in her, and she was beautiful. And, importantly, she had been showing interest in him.

She had reacted with this jerk back like he had struck her, chuckled a little, and said she was interested in someone else.

Not so surprising. Whatever girl he was interested already being interested in someone else was a theme of his life. Peach, of course… and then, at least five women he had talked to outside of the Mushroom Kingdom. It seemed he was doomed to only be attracted to people who were not, or couldn't be attracted back to him.

(But what did attraction mean for an asexual? Appreciation of the aesthetic, perhaps. It was hard to pin down. But it was not channeled by lust. And that was what he figured to be the root of failure.)

So, but then (back to the backstory) later that night, this same one woman who had spurred him told Bowser that the guy she was interested in hadn't shown up, would he like to go out drinking with her?

They left, went to another bar, and she spent the time walking around, talking with three other guys, then eventually leaving with one of them.

That woman... had been Pauline.

Bowser supposed, that if he was better at the "game", that that night he could have put on all sorts of little acts and said little things and put on an entertaining show, to keep Pauline's attention dragged on to him. Pauline was looking for attention, so she was going from guy to guy to see who would give her the most. Or looking to see which guy had the most personal "flourish". Or whatever.

Bowser had settled very simply for being as honest as possible at all times. He wasn't going to play any games. Besides, he did not hope to get anything besides some tepid conversation (for he was the only one actually trying to have a conversation, almost the only one who wasn't grasping for something else) with most of the women he met out in the wasteland of bars.

So that "incident" had been a month ago. And now Pauline was with another guy, and giving Bowser Looks again. But he couldn't be angry at her. It was only the game, the monstrous, devouring game, that system everyone was trapped in, man or woman. You got pulled into it (you reached a certain age), and then there was no escape— you played by the rules, or you failed. And eventually, if you were successful enough, you forgot there was even a "game" with "rules" at all.

Bowser swallowed another cup of beer and checked the time.

He had only been at the party for twenty minutes. He had two hours and forty minutes left to get free beer.

This will be a good night, he thought distantly.

Bowser returned to the corner to find Toad alone, Pauline having gone off somewhere. Outside, on the balcony, a live band was setting up.

Toad looked even angrier than he had been when Pauline was there.

"What's up with you?" Bowser asked. "You look like you need a drink. Free beers, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Toad's voice was a bit jittery, "Imma bout to go up." He looked around. "So how long have you been here?"

"Where? The party?"

"Sarasaland."

Actually, it was a common question among the expats in Sarasaland, to find out how long you had been there.

"Oh, about two years." Bowser swirled his beer cup.

"Nice, nice," Toad chattered, "Six months for me."

"Yeah, how you like it so far?"

They too, were playing a game, the conversational game, the small-talk game. But Bowser could tolerate it, because he didn't lose at it, and there were no real "lies" necessary.

"Not too bad." Toad shrugged. "Good food over here."

"Hi." Pauline reappeared, immediately attaching herself back to Toad, "What are you guys talking about?"

"Nothing interesting." Bowser said truthfully, but with that ironic tone that made things a little easier to say, "How've you been, Pauline?"

He should have been angrier, talking to her, but she really was beautiful, and when you were talking directly to her, and she was giving you attention, it felt okay. Maybe it could be said her beauty was distracting. When she turned away, the logic and memories could return, and Bowser would think of Pauline with unconscious resentment tempered by conscious understanding. The understanding of the societal system to be to blame, and of his own psychological foibles— that if he didn't "expect" something from her, he wouldn't be angry at being deceived and failing to "get" something.

_My love isn't lost, it's all I've got!_

Oh, what a horrible thing it is to think!

Do you see it: what is the source of all problems, all evil, all difficulties? Trace any line of cause-and-effect long enough, and you'll find that there is some great monstrous system floating all around, a matrix so-to-speak, a system of unconscious rules that controls everyone's behavior and expectations. It is almost never that a person is to blame in the end, but the unconscious system that guided people along, people just trying to survive in unstable existence. And if you know that this system seems to control everything, and there is no one person to blame, what will you do? Can you scream, can you explode with furious anger, at the nothing all around? There's no longer a physical target to pin your blame on.

People who know less can choose a deeply bitter enemy, whether someone in their personal lives, or some foreigner in a far away land, or some very rich person, or some "lazy" poor person. On this person they can place the brunt of their fury at existence. The fire and anger they spit at or about that person, is really the fire and anger at monstrous existence.

What is monstrous existence? Is it simply our own failings? Peace can only come within, you must change yourself before you can change the world? Anger exists only within?

Yes, that's true. But your deep sea is as deep, maybe deeper, than the outside world. You might have an easier time attaining world peace than attaining internal peace! You can think for a thousand years, you can suffer the wars and battles inside yourself, one opinion against another, for one million years. Your body and mind are a bloody battleground, ideas and opinions the armies and soldiers. They lay waste to your soul while they fight for peace and truth. "Cognitive dissonance"- such an academic-sounding term really does not suggest the blood and pain of this condition.

And there is no end, Bowser thinks. The soul is infinitely deep. There are no answers. No answers. No answers. So you must stop thinking, it's the only way.

And he takes his third drink of the night.

They say that truth and understanding are obscured by drink. Drinking is temporary suicide. But anyone who ever thought that must have never really battled with their mind. If Bowser had suffered in thoughts and failed desires for three years, five years, maybe his entire life, what was the point of it all? How many years did someone have to suffer, meaninglessly, before it was okay to just sink into drink? Some simple man, with a simple life, who had never left his little town, perhaps, could declare that all problems could be solved, and inner peace was possible.

(And really, the truth was, all these people had a pretty lady or a handsome guy, and when they celebrated the importance of thinking and the uselessness of drinking, they were already wiping out their minds by snuggling up with a warm body and close companion. That was the opiate that answered all questions.)

(Well, and organized religion.)

Bowser didn't know. Bowser didn't know. He had thought and thought for five thousand years, and he still didn't know anything. Except: that thinking was useless.

Why sit and think when you can sit and drink?

That wasn't a good rhyme. But he was on his fourth drink now. That wasn't his greatest concern.

Outside, some exciting song was playing. Leaving the boring conversation inside, Bowser muttered something and wandered out onto the balcony.


	8. Chapter 8: Gyroscope (The Party 2)

Chapter Eight: Gyroscope

Now Bowser was thinking like crazy again. But he told himself: It's okay. I can just stop thinking again. I'm thinking now because I'm drinking, and I'm okay to think when I drink.

(He missed the contradiction with his previous ideas.)

He decided he had three major options when it came to the general direction of his thoughts: Bottomless anger, bottomless sadness, and bottomless nothing.

Bottomless anger was the mode he had spent most of his life in, before he gave up on Peach. Bottomless anger was fueled by blaming some outside force for one's problems. Bowser had spent many years using Mario as that outside force, the target for his anger. If only there was no Mario—! Then, Bowser could be happy. So he was furious at Mario.

Bottomless sadness was the mode he had spent most of his time in after giving up on Peach. It came with the realization that life was complicated, that the source of problems was not obvious. That he, Bowser, was just as much to blame for his life being unhappy as anyone. Probably, he was more to blame than anyone else. And the more he blamed himself for his unhappiness, the sadder he became.

Maybe you could make a spectrum out of it: the more you blamed other people for your problems, the angrier you were. The more you blamed yourself for your problems, the sadder you were.

Then comes in the third option: bottomless nothing. The point where you intellectually realize all of this, and you try to be balanced. You shouldn't be angry! It's not other people's fault. You shouldn't be sad! You're doing your best— and besides, being sad won't help you to become happy.

So: in that complex intellectual balance, what is in-between? Apparently, nothing. For Bowser did not become happy in "understanding" all of this, but merely settled more into a lack of emotion. Perhaps this was the result of repressing the anger and sadness. It didn't make you happy.

Several spiritual teachers had claimed that "happiness" was the true nature of all people. That when we aren't worrying, we should just automatically be happy. Bowser never understood this. Even now, as he avoided thinking, he would not call this state a continuous happiness— not like how he had remembered the glorious heights of happiness before.

Or maybe Bowser was just different from everyone else. He naturally had a torturous mind. It might be said that he had various "complexes" in his head, thought-connections, that made his natural way of thinking very painful. Why? Why? Some trauma during childhood? Trauma during infancy? Things you'd never remember, could never know?

Or maybe (another theory!) there was something physically wrong with him. If you had a faulty part of your digestive system, a perpetually ill stomach or section of intestine, that kind of unconscious physiological pain could echo up from below, through the nervous system, into the mind, and represent itself as pain-bodies that came alive in ugly thoughts.

And what were you going to do if some miscellaneous, anonymous wall somewhere in your digestive tract had a little invisible cut or rash that was responsible for your misery?

...Drink!

But as Bowser finished his fourth cup, and went for his fifth, he thought maybe it couldn't be that simple, because his body had been transformed anyway. Maybe his old self had some internal damage somewhere (probably from however many times Mario had bashed him up) but his new, ordinary koopa self should be pristine, right?

Or did internal damage get carried over?

Something to ask the good priest when I visit, Bowser thought tipsily, sarcastically. He watched his fifth cup of alcohol get filled.

He turned away from the counter and slipped into conversation. By this point he recognized a good number of faces in the bar, and was able to slip from conversation to conversation if he liked. The alcohol made this easier: boredom did not come so easily if he was filled up with drink. He was able to be honestly enthralled by the smallest details in conversation, in the tedious events of ordinary life. Yes, how interesting! How interesting it all was!

And the more he drank, the better the music got. And now there was a live band playing outside (where did they come from?!) and the music was so good, it was amazing. Chai had fantastic talent. This was becoming such a fun night now. Now the thoughts were really slipping away, he didn't even need to catch himself— no effort required! The full physical world was coming on.

This is what it's like to be a normal person, Bowser said to himself. I'm so envious.

_But ain't no gyroscope can spin forever_

If his deadly sin was no longer wrath, it was surely envy. He was horribly envious. Mostly of relationships. If there was anything he thought that "most other people" had that he didn't have, he would be horribly envious of it.

Oh oh oh! A game of beer pong was starting.

He watched, fascinated. He thought to himself that if he watched enough games, he would absorb the board into his mind, he would memorize the _physical space_ so-to-speak, and would become an expert. Playing was best, of course, but if one couldn't play, at least watching closely was good. He had heard that the best tennis players would watch recorded loops of games over and over again.

Now he was playing, and he was terrible. He concentrated in his first few throws, then he thought nothing at all. But he didn't score any shots anyway.

Ah, more to drink! You lose, you drink. The ball gets in your cup, and you drink drink drink.

Now he was going to lose track of how much he was drinking. But who cared? Normal people didn't count. No, no… Sink deep, sink deep.

Now he was talking to Birdo. She looked bored and anxious. She didn't like crowds. She also didn't like to drink.

"How can you not drink?" The idea seemed the most outrageous in the world to Bowser now.

"I don't like it." Birdo tilted her head a little. "Are you okay?"

"I've never ever been better. Bean better. Bean?" He paused. "Huh."

"Have you seen Vivian yet? I tried looking for her, but…"

"Ah, so that's why you came." Bowser nodded, like everything finally made sense. "Vivian… huh, yeah, I think so… But not for a while…"

"Oh." Birdo looked back at him.

Bowser knew Birdo liked him. This wasn't a delusion of his— she had actually taken photos of him with her phone when she thought he wasn't looking. But she was another of the women he wasn't actually attracted to. To be frank, he found her intellectually disappointing. She had strong religious feelings, often appealing to God for help when she failed at some daily task— and making the prayers public online.

If there was a God, Bowser thought, it was stupid to ask them for help because you missed your bus. And even dumber to tell everyone else about your delusionally insignificant prayers.

He wondered what she thought of him when he was drunk. She never drank, presumably because of her religious upbringing. She was probably one of those who said that drinking served no purpose. She had never directly criticized him for drinking, anyway.

"Excuse me, I'm going to go to… Uh, I'll be right back." He stumbled up from the table, then righted himself, back straight, to show how much control he had, and that he wasn't really so drunk.

The bathroom was up the stairs.

Somewhere along the way he came across Pauline. Toad was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey," She said, giving him a Look. "Me and my friends are going to another place soon. Want to come?"

He listened to himself say yes, and wait just a moment, and then he went on to the bathroom. He was aware that the cycle was playing itself out, but one of the armies in his head justified this by saying that surely he could still be successful with women— he just had to keep trying. And this was how he would try: he was going to go out with Pauline somewhere again. And maybe things would be different this time.

Wait, what did he even want?

"I want nothing," He said out loud, in the bathroom. I'm just going with the flow. Living in the moment. She invited me somewhere, I said yes. Simple as that. I'm asexual. I don't want anything. Except alcohol. "I want alcohol."

He burst into laughter.

Downstairs he grabbed another drink, just as the free deal was ending, spun in a circle, had a conversation with another koopa he knew from somewhere, walked out around the balcony, wondering where Pauline went, and found her by the door to the stairs outside.

"There you are. Come on."

They went down the stairs. Outside they met some of Pauline's friends.

"Where's Toad?" He asked. Idiot!- He thought to himself right after.

"I think he'll meet us there…" Pauline said distantly.

Then they were off. They walked the dark corners of the streets, through pools of light created by lampposts, under the neon glow of club signs and karaoke rooms. These endless streets…

Where that killer Luigi lurks. But the thought blew away in the wind. No thoughts necessary here!

Here they were, another bar: the name was "4-4". That was the name. Bowser thought this was very funny, because it seemed meaningless to him. He burst out laughing.

Pauline gave him a confused, somewhat disgusted look.

"The absurdity of the manning-meaninglessness is the root of all comedy," Bowser said helpfully.

"What?"

"Yes." Bowser said.

Inside the bar, Toad was waiting, and he looked just as angry as before. Maybe a little angrier.

"You gotta chill out." Bowser said. "Have you had anything to drink yet?"

"Yes," Toad snapped. He turned to Bowser's left. "Pauline…"

Pauline looked surprised, utterly baffled to see him there. Toad, though, had clearly been waiting for her. Bowser thought this was very funny too— maybe the "game" wasn't so bad after all. It was like a great theater stage. Everyone play-acting these terrible characters. It just wouldn't be as fun if everyone was calm and kind. No.

Now you get it, he thought. Romance and sex would be no fun if everyone was dry and serious. As long as we're all acting, as long as we're pretending, telling little stories, catching each other up in traps, isn't it all delightfully devilish? This is what separates children from adults: children are innocent because they don't know about sex, and sex is the root of all this monstrous chaos and lies. Because it is the ultimate pleasure, and we will do anything for it. Society can crumble, as long as we have sex. Rocky Horror Picture Show, maybe.

And this was why churches wanted their priests and monks to be celibate. You could not get into the whole sexual game without becoming at least a little bad, without at least a few lies. And churches were supposed to be the beacon of truth and goodness.

Truth! In church! Bowser snorted. He went to the counter and ordered a cocktail.

"Adios motherfucker". He tapped a finger on the menu. "That's a great name. Yes. 'Adios motherfucker'. I love it. I want that. Ha ha ha. Adios… fucking adios…"

The drink came lickety-split. It was a little fruity, but mostly disgusting as appropriate for a strong drink. His mouth and tongue hardly felt the liquid at this point.

"Adios…" He mumbled to himself. "Ha ha ha…"

He watched with a sense of malicious pleasure mingling with the last remnants of disappointment as he watched Pauline leave, hanging on some human guy. Toad stood nearby, looking like he was about to explode. Very funny stuff. Very funny.

"Listenn," Bowser slurred, "If you don't laugh, you'll onnly cry. Let's just laugh."

"What the fuck," Toad seethed. "She invited me here."

"So wwhat? She invited me here too. Who knows…" Bowser trailed off. "Shhe probably…"

There were too many words, too heavy, to try to explain anymore. Pauline had probably been hurt by men before, and now it was her turn to hurt men. A cruel part of Bowser imagined that if he was ever successful with women, it would be his turn to hurt them, to play with their emotions, like they had done to him.

This was all part of the game! The great evil cycle! Men hurt women, and women hurt men, and men hurt women, and women hurt men—! From the beginning of time.

He couldn't explain all that. He was sinking fast. What _profound_ wisdom he could provide to Toad, if only his mouth still worked properly!

Far away, through foggy vision, Toad was flinging a bar glass against the hardwood wall. It shattered, exploding glass and beer, and Toad was gone barreling out the bar door.

Bowser sat back and drank.

_Adios! _


	9. Chapter 9: Memory Machine

Chapter Nine: Memory Machine

In the dark of the night he had made it back to the hospital. He walked down the empty halls, echoing with the sound of his steps, and came to the door at the end of the hall. The room was poorly lit, but Bowser could see well enough: Luigi was lying in bed, eyes closed. There was a large machine hooked up to him.

It was one of those machines that measured heartbeat. But the line was flat. There was no sound, no sound at all in this blank place, but the electric line was flat as the road.

Peach emerged from a dark corner, moving so quietly and quickly that it was like she was floating.

"Luigi is dead."

Her eyes were grave.

Bowser's mouth opened, but his throat was empty. He turned back to Luigi, whose bed was suddenly so reminiscent of a coffin.

He woke up at that point, weirdly alert, despite the heavy blanket laying over his mind. Bolts of spiking pain ran through his mind. He remembered, quite vaguely through the dust, his body chugging down a bottle-and-a-half of water before falling into bed. He'd found in the past that that prevented the worst of a hangover the next morning, and now it seemed his unconscious body was trained to get the water down before bed.

So, as bad as he felt, it could have been a lot worse.

He'd be foggy for the day.

He sat up in bed, putting his feet on the floor beside, and thought over a little bit of what had happened the night before. Then he caught himself, and stopped thinking.

He supposed at most he was curious about what had happened to Toad.

And, with a bit of disappointment, he realized he had completely forgotten about trying to find Luigi.

Saw him in my dreams, anyway, He thought troublingly.

So now what? Get ready for school the next day. Write a bit. Watch something. Whatever. Keep living. Keep looking for things to do. Keep from thinking, and keep from letting monotony devour.

_If and only if they find a way to cure the longing— the distant panic_

Maybe the root of all evil was really boredom. Maybe if one traced everything back, at least in Bowser's own life, absolutely everything he did was ultimately to prevent monotony, boredom, or perhaps in its most accurate wording, ennui.

You make goals, and you carry things out. Earlier on, with less understanding, Bowser was completely ruled by emotions, he supposed. He was angry, so he did this this and this. He was in love with someone, so he did this this and this. There were steps, things he just did without thinking too hard about it, because the emotions directed it. At some point he broke free of those emotions, and tried to understand why he did what he did and what he "should" be doing. As that analysis improved, he could not be so easily possessed by emotions. Just being aware of these possessive emotions kept them from taking control.

But, left entirely to his own devices, without emotions to give the "answers" to everything, life had less meaning, and more than before, it became a race to escape boredom. What would he do with himself? Theoretically, if he had someone he "loved" now, he would be possessed to do whatever he could for them. There would be no question of what he was "supposed" to do, or what prevented boredom— he would automatically do that which seemed to help the other person, fully driven on by the emotion. That was probably how 80% of people lived.

Heh. He chuckled to himself. And here he was, making measurements as to what made him different from others, again. This was a mental trap he returned to repeatedly: making some measurement of what made him different from others, then feeling lonelier once he had succeeded in demonstrating what made him different. But... he really was different!- He had been a king, and he used to have a uniquely monstrous body.

But, acknowledging these things brought a mental pain. Separating himself from others (while not achieving more than others) brought a kind of mental pain.

At the same time, trying to tell himself that he was the same as everyone else, trying to find the things that really made everyone the same, brought a kind of fury and mental pain all the same. He had gone through so much! He wanted to talk about things that others seemed to have no idea of or at least interest in! Of course he was different. To diminish that difference would be to deny himself, almost a form of personality suicide. If everyone was just the same, if he was just the same, then everything had been for nothing.

Yes, he would prove through his poetry, that he really was different!

But did he really want to be different? If he were more like everyone else, there would be less pain…

Well, did he have a choice? Perhaps he was still controlled by emotions all the same, they were just far subtler than before: these were the mental wars being raged in his head. "The desire to be like everyone else" vs. "The desire to be unique". "Romantics" vs. "Aromantics". Weird characters that weren't covered by the classic cast of "Anger", "Sadness", "Happiness"...

So in the end, everyone was influenced by these different emotional "characters", battling for supremacy in the mind. And did we have any control at all, or choice, which characters were winning or losing? And who were WE, US at all, but whichever character had temporarily taken control?

That tricky bastard Hume said that "we" were just whatever latest perception we were having in the moment. I feel warm! I feel cold! I feel anger! I feel sadness! What need was there of the "I" in these sentences?- Just say "Warm! Cold! Anger! Sadness!" That's all there was, really.

Have the perceptions coming from the outside world, and have the mental characters (call them archetypes if you're of a certain persuasion) on the inside, and maybe there, bundle all this crap together, and you have the "Self".

This was, of course, making things far too wildly difficult, and was not going to help anyone with romance (if Bowser still gave a damn at this point), and then again, he came right back to the only important point that mattered for trying to live a decent life, which was:

Stop thinking.

_There are folks that think to have a soul you've got to suffer_

(See, but he honestly enjoyed learning. He enjoyed trying to solve the "mystery" of the universe. But it was when he imagined that he could use this learning to help his own broken life that things got particularly neurotic.)

"Fuck," He groaned, falling back into his bed. How had things gotten to this point?

(Wait, no, stop thinking stop thinking stop thinking—!)

It was okay. This was background noise. In fact, now, he decided (getting out of bed again) he was going to sit down to meditate. Just sit, for twenty minutes, and focus on his breathing as much as possible.

(Although it hadn't been mentioned before, he had to believe that this practice of daily meditation for the last four months, as pointless as it seemed, was partially responsible for the greater sense of "peace" he had experienced for the last two months or so. That his breakthrough, if that was what it was to be called, that one drunken night, exclaiming he was "done", was the results of practicing at staying in the moment and concentrating on not thinking for periods of time.)

Yes, it was a very simple thing. Just focus on his breathing for twenty minutes. And his mind would continue to run on and on in the background (the machine could not be turned off, at least unless the access to oxygen was cut off) but as long as he essentially ignored the thoughts, or "accepted them as they came" (or however you'd like to put it), there was some greater sense of peace brought to his overall life. It was a very strange thing, hard to believe, and the oddness of it was what had kept him from seriously trying meditation before, even though he had heard recommendations towards it for something like the last five years.

So here, here, in this peace of breath, he pointed his thoughts towards the basic function of the lungs and body, and the rambling continued on in the background—

How had things gotten to this point? What was fundamentally wrong with him, that he ended up here, while others ended up elsewhere? Where was here, and there elsewhere? It was an idea of some greater peace. It was an idea of being capable of romantic love.

Was this a matter of not accepting asexuality? This definition answers more questions than any other had, and yet there is a slight hesitancy, still a worry of keeping it, because it is such a rare answer. Could he say Peach's rejection had broken him? That he was still straight, heterosexual, but he had been emotionally destroyed, and what he called asexuality was this complete emotional defeat?

No. No, because… no, think back. Even with Peach, had he ever really wanted to have sex with her?

Oh, now this was an interesting question. This was an interesting point. Even with Peach… even with Peach… what had he been thinking of when he kidnapped her? He knew now, he knew that a normal person (a non-asexual, for Bowser was still thinking in a self-deprecating sense, automatically, without realizing it), a normal person would look at another normal person, and _automatically want to have sex_. That the fundamental, first thought when a boy looks at a girl is: I want to have sex with her. I want to put my body into hers. That is the normal, basic thought. No prerequisites necessary. Bowser had never even realized this, and it was hard to find out, because it was supposed to be such a normal, primary thought, that no one ever actually mentioned this. No one ever said, explained: "When I look at pretty girls, I immediatly want to have sex with them." There is no build-up for normal people. You don't need to know anything about the person, you should just want their body.

And this, too, was the proof that Bowser needed that he wasn't gay— that he had never looked at a guy, and thought: "I want to have sex with that man." There was simply no interest in sex itself, in Bowser.

(Yes, this was the final proof. His general disgust at the idea of he himself being involved in gay sex should have been enough, but he always harbored irritating doubts, because people insisted you were always plainly straight or gay, and Bowser had had no strong, indefeatable evidence towards either orientation, because he lacked real lust.)

And what he did have was aesthetic attraction. And that, he could have towards both sexes. To normal people, this was simply known as "liking" someone. This is why people become friends! And for Bowser, Peach had been aesthetic perfection. She was extremely beautiful, kind, smart, and on a more materialistic level (it could not be denied) she was royal, and had money.

And now, the piece de resistance, the cherry on top of the cake, the end of the argument: Despite all of that, all those traits any reasoning person could clearly see, and agree with, Bowser, alone, had _never actually_ _wanted to have sex with Peach_.

And if that was the case, then he had always been asexual— at least as far back as he could remember. Back to age six? And whether some traumatizing thing had happened to him in infancy, it was a permanent change. It was probably the same for homosexuals and bisexuals— something happened in infancy, something unpredictable, unmeant by the parents or guardians, and a person's sexual orientation gets set in a direction. And there's nothing wrong with any orientation. A person cannot change it— at least, there is nothing within their willpower they can do. Perhaps, at some point years later, some chemicals will outweigh others within the body, or some mental complexes will make war against others in the head, win "the battle", and a person will become slightly more attracted to one kind of person than another…

But one, (as Bowser knew for sure now) cannot change their orientation by force. He had been trying (without even realizing it!) to make himself plainly heterosexual his entire life, to stop being asexual, and it had never worked at all, even when he thought it had.

It could be said that, after all, he had really just been capturing Peach so she'd be his friend.


	10. Chapter 10: Wildlife Analysis (Internet)

Chapter Ten: Wildlife Analysis

There was one final (serious) counterpoint that could be made, and that was that there was no such thing as asexuality, in that the "cure" of such a (temporary) condition was close companionship and sexual intercourse. That once that fruit was tasted, a person would be completely addicted to sex, obsessed with the chase such that life was nothing else (unconsciously at least, if a person still went out and consciously talked about other things, but was really only hunting for a body the entire time), and become "properly" heterosexual or homosexual (because, again, it seemed that the obsessive cultural belief was that one had to be one of these two things).

Bowser could confirm that the above was not true. Having sex did not "cure" one of asexuality. The details are especially private and not of direct relation to the story at hand, so little more will be said at this time. We can say that what happened happened many years ago, or what felt like many years ago. Before discouragement and sadness had become the persistent emotions of Bowser's life.

These revelations, playing out through the backgrounds of meditation, brought a newfound peace to Bowser's mind. His pursuit of women was both impossible and useless. It was impossible not just because he did not have lust, but because he had _never _had lust. It was useless because the reason people were obsessed with sex was because of lust. There was no real higher meaning to it, at least outside of actually trying to build a family. It was the center of society because it was an addiction, possibly the greatest addiction, not because it was actually the "meaning of life" (again, putting aside the idea of building a family, which is a completely different issue).

There was some idea that one had to have sex to "properly emotionally connect" with people, but obviously deep friends of the same gender did not (usually) have sex with each other.

This idea, and perhaps the entire cult of sex, may have come from the beliefs of a certain kind of people. A certain personality type. We might call them extroverts.

Say there are two kinds of people: introverts and extroverts. One is more susceptible to contemplation, and one is more susceptible to emotional action. Both have pros and cons. (You may already know more.)

It was not by malice that the sometimes louder group of people defined the rules by how society and people are supposed to act, but because it was the only way they knew how. "Sex is the highest good, if you are not with someone at most any moment you are doing something wrong, and acting emotionally is usually better than thinking rationally." (This last point Bowser was actually still rather conflicted on, but we'll save that to consider later, maybe.)

The above rules were generally applicable to the extroverted way of life, not to the introvert. But as extroverts were often louder than introverts and of less doubt whether they were correct about things, these rules became quite widespread as proper ways to live. Who knows when. Could have been fifty years ago, maybe a hundred, maybe forever. You might read an old book and get the sense that the rules of society were more introverted before (or less sex-obsessed) but it has to be considered that the book was probably written by an introvert, and it may be that different groups of people, who may tend to do different things or perform different roles in society, might more often be extroverted or introverted.

...And now, with a great exhalation of breath... the proper story is returned to.

That is, the dying breath of another victim— that stringy phantom haunting the streets of Chai had killed another person, another woman.

She was middle-aged, old for her profession. She, like the first victim, was found stuffed in a dumpster, though this dumpster was far closer to the main thoroughways of Chai, and was found much sooner after the murder. Her throat had been cut… and the body stabbed several times after, to seemingly no purpose. (The last victim had also had their throat cut… but no stab wounds.)

The murder happened on a Wednesday night, and was reported the very next day. Bowser, who was now paying attention to the local news, heard about it as soon as anyone.

Chai's online message boards were also lit up with talk about the news. The chats, composed of around five hundred people, were abound with rumors.

This online network was relatively new. Although cell phones were quite widespread (and so as well, direct calling and texting between two people) the concept of an online network had only come into existence around five years ago. As it was, the network was not international, but existed as individual units, city by city. So, for instance, there was Chai's network, with its nearly five hundred anonymous users. They could all write and post on the Chai online network (which was mostly chat rooms) but could not write on or see the networks of other cities. You would need to physically be in a certain city to access its network.

There were, in the world, nine cities that were known to have their own online networks, but so far, they were not connected to each other.

Users, in general, were anonymous. But Bowser could clearly recognize some people by the stories they told or the events they mentioned.

*Eggy8891: My coworkers yelled at me again today! I can't believe how mean they are. But I'll pray for them. God will get me through this, and He will hopefully make the other teachers nicer to me.

*Fricassee104: I can't BELIEVE THIS! I am so PISSED! My Saturday night was garbage. Women think they can treat me like dirt. It's because I'm short, I know it. If I was taller, everything would be different.

Bowser used the platform to post some of his poems and get feedback, since he didn't have a real writing community in physical life, and his friends had no real interest in reading what he wrote.

He also liked to engage in conversations, occasionally. He liked the anonymity the network provided, so he could speak more honestly than he might in physical life, and at greater lengths about topics that tended to bore people.

*Souper408: Has anyone else here read "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley? It's supposed to be a dystopian novel, often compared with 1984, but I think it's a great future! You can drink some soma and be happy whenever you want. No more pain. The book says this is bad because we'll lose "higher art" or whatever, but I don't give a damn. Anyone who thinks the future in Brave New World is bad has obviously never been depressed. If I could press a switch and never have to be unhappy for no reason for the rest of my life, I'd do it in an instant. Suffering is useless. Let the art perish!

So, he was much more outspoken online than in the real world. And yes, even though he sought "art" through poetry, he would say just the same that if he had the choice, and he could remove his pain and ability to produce art through some side-effect-free soma, he would take the drug. His substitute at this time was alcohol, but that was far from an adequate solution— it provided, at most, four or five hours of thought-free fun at a time, and always traded off with at least a little sickness in the form of headaches or worse. He was also beginning to recognize that if he had even one or two drinks one night, he would be more tired the next day.

*SpaghettiAbundance4594: Re: Brave New World. It's a matter of loss of personal freedom… also, so you agree with the caste system in the story…?

*Curryer227: We already live in a caste system! Kids grow up in rich, middle-class, and poor families. They get a certain amount of education based on their class, and then take tests and go to colleges (if they can even go to college!) and then they get sorted into jobs based on that for the rest of their goddamn lives. At least as how society would have it! You get locked into some garbage position, and then everything in society will fight against you, all of the rules, to keep you locked in. We may keep learning and getting smarter, but everything will fight to keep us in our same condition…

*SpaghettiAbundance4594: So you should just work harder. If you really want something, you can get it.

*Curryer227: Have you ever left your house?

Curryer227 (whoever that was) had stepped in to fight for Bowser's position, and now the chat was flinging back and forth between them and SpaghettiAbundance.

From Bowser's perspective, Spaghetti read as someone who had had a basic middle-class education, and did not have the imagination to ever want anything more than what they saw in front of them, and so they would always be confused in general when other people ever complained about their lives. They had read some literature, and usually agreed with whatever the politically center or slightly center-left "authorities" had to say on it.

Curryer read as someone who was intelligent, but did not understand the ways that networking dominated things, and so as they had maybe worked hard in school, they had found a lack of connections once they graduated, had been forced to take a less glamorous job than they may have been expecting, and had now fallen into a kind of perpetual resentment and anger. A Holden Caulfield kind of fellow.

Bowser's own circumstances were too unique for him to seriously continue the argument— he recognized that his past did not provide a good argument for whatever position he took, since it was so very different from the other people arguing there.

For one, he used to be a king. This would seem to make him strictly upper class, aristocratic, but in fact, he had really only been king in name only. A figurehead. For most of his rule, he had had almost no power, besides, later on, the allowance to chase after Peach.

His parents had died when he was very young, and being a very young child, he could not properly rule his family's kingdom. Naturally, a distantly related older relative, the nearest surviving relative in the family tree, had to take control of the kingdom, at least until Bowser came of age. Officially. This relative was, coincidentally, the leader of the Koopa Kingdom's army.

To Bowser he was known as the General, and was only to be addressed as Sir.

The General had been the real ruler of the Koopa Kingdom for nearly two decades, but had propped up Bowser, as the heir to the royal family, as the real "king". As the General ordered, so too Bowser directed the kingdom, with little understanding of the actual politics at work. Disobedience was met with violence and periods of isolation.

It was not a very happy topic. Bowser only needed to remind himself that the past and the future did not exist, and he could quietly turn away from those dark remembrances.

Bowser returned to the Brave New World chat, only to add:

*Souper408: SpaghettiAbundance4594 You talk about personal freedom. So, do you believe in free will?

It wasn't a very fair question, and wasn't really related to the book chat, but it might make for an interesting conversation. He felt that he wanted to add a little more to the chat so it didn't just seem like he had started the topic, and then run away. In any case, he did like to follow chats about free will.

He liked to read people arguing for why free will did not exist. If he was completely honest with himself, he did not believe in free will (determinism in science being too overwhelmingly clear, in any case) but recognized that it was supposed to be "healthy" to believe that free will did exist.

The idea, he supposed, was that if you did not believe that you had free will, then you would lose hope, and get lazy, or something. There were some studies that people who believed in free will were happier and more successful in life.

If you failed repeatedly and endlessly at something, however (as someone like Bowser did) the lack of free will was a great comfort, and belief in free will was a tremendous hurt, since it stated that he and only he was responsible for being a complete, endless failure. (This was not a real argument for the lack of free will, but it was an emotional component that encouraged Bowser's enjoyment of the actual arguments against free will.)

Whatever the case, everyone in the world kept doing what they were doing, and the world kept spinning. Bowser had to believe that everyone was doing and believing what helped them best. And if everyone was always trying their hardest to live, then every person (again) should never regret anything, and thus, the matter of free will did not matter in the equation of finding peace.


	11. Chapter 11: Mr Grieves (1st Encounter)

Chapter Eleven: Mr. Grieves

The weekend after the second murder, on a Saturday night, Bowser and Wario were leaving a bar. Wario was sopping drunk and fat on garlic chicken, excited that his business was very close to going public. Bowser had had less to drink than usual, as he was trying more seriously to write, and he was finding that he had more energy if he drank less. So, he had only had four drinks that night.

The two were supporting each other, arms on each other's shoulders— or at least, Bowser was mostly supporting Wario, since he wasn't quite drunk enough to need support. Wario was doing pretty well on his own, but without the other body there to give him some 25% of support, he had a chance of toppling over. Regardless, he was raring to go the next pub— another place that was underground, where he claimed that they could get a "wwwwonderful" drink called absinthe.

Bowser should not have been agreeing to have a shot of this drink, if he was trying to avoid drinking so much (Wario had already exclaimed in half-shouts how strong the drink was, and how it produced a "weird" effect) but he had excused himself on the decision that trying new things for the sake of poetry and art was more important than being a stuffy old bastard. He was young! As everyone around him suggested, discipline was for the old and worn-out. Now was the time for fun.

They had gotten halfway through the shortcut Wario had suggested, stumbling down alone through another dark alleyway, before they came across the thin, bow-legged man.

It was him. It was very hard to see, but it was Luigi (it had to be) in the dark of the shadows, and he had a human woman cornered against the wall. His lanky arms barred the woman in. His head was bowed towards her, with his hat pointed down. The woman, maybe in her thirties, looked dazed, like she was half-asleep.

Bowser, seeing this first (Wario himself had his head down, mumbling about how much his stomach and chest hurt from the food) stopped.

"Wuzzat? What'sss going on?" Wario mumbled.

"Luigi." Bowser opened his mouth a little, then shut it again. His heart was caught for a moment in the shock of so suddenly encountering the killer. But as he saw Luigi reaching for something in his pocket, he found the fresh energy to shout. "Luigi!"

Luigi jumped and turned. The shadows still covered his face, really the whole front of his body, so his reaction was not visible. The woman in front of him, utterly dizzy, went slumping to the ground, sitting with her back against the moldy bricks.

"What? What?" Wario was now looking around, and now he too was looking at the figure ahead of them.

"Let her go, Luigi." Bowser trembled. His mind was darting all around. Now, in the heat of the moment, there was no time for idle thoughts, useless philosophy, or random spouts of discontent. Only choices of certainty mattered. He was not big, strong, fire-breathing Bowser anymore. He was an ordinary koopa. He was not particularly strong, though he was fit enough to help support fat Wario.

But of course— he had his phone with him. He could call Chai's police. He just needed to distract Luigi, and get him away from his target.

"I'm the one you want, Luigi, right?" He gestured. "What do you want with her? I'm here. You've been trying to find me, right?"

The man in the shadows, now turned to face Bowser and Wario, stepped forward several steps. He emerged into a patch of moonlight that peered down from a crack formed between the roofs above.

In that light, it was clear that the man was quite tall, that his crooked legs seemed to make him shorter than he really was, that he had a large, purple, hooked nose, and that though he wore a hat similar to Luigi's, it was not green but purple… and the L on it was upside-down.

Bowser was struck dumb with shock. This was not Luigi.

"You…!" Now Wario was reacting, and he broke away from Bowser. "No. No…"

Bowser turned to Wario, and back to the man with the upside-down L. They knew each other? The purple man's face was impassive so far, but now it was beginning to contort, crunching up, mangled into some expression of grief and fear. He stepped back again into his shadows.

"Wah...wahhhhh…"

It was the sound of a grown man moaning like a baby. The shadow was stepping back now, bow-legged feet awkwardly finding their footing.

"No…" Wario, meanwhile, was holding a hand to his chest, and sinking down slowly. His breath was growing tight, and his eyes were bulging out. "Bowser… call the police… Quickly…"

Bowser got out his phone, and quickly dialed the emergency number. The purple man turned and fled, escaping into the dark.

The police, relatively well organized in Chai, arrived just a few minutes later.

It turned out that Wario had been struck with a heart attack. It made sense for a man of his weight and blood pressure to be hit with an attack at such a shocking moment. The paramedics arrived quickly after the police, picking up Wario and the delirious woman. After arriving at the hospital, Bowser was assured that Wario would be okay, that he would just have to rest for some time in the hospital. The woman would also be fine— she had been given a drug, as Bowser had guessed, that had debilitated her. After being questioned by the police, Bowser was ordered to go home— he could return to the hospital to visit on Monday.

So the phantom haunting the streets of Chai had not been Luigi after all. It was something or someone even stranger: a man who looked vaguely like Luigi, and even wore an L on his hat, a letter. Like only the Mario brothers and Wario did.

For the Mario brothers, it was known to be something of a tradition from the small village they had come from— for the men of the village to wear their initials on their hats. Wario had also come from this village, and said that while he would ordinarily have considered keeping the tradition going out in the wider world a "ridiculous affair", he found it useful for "branding" in his business pursuits.

Beyond those three, Bowser had never heard of another human, let alone anyone, wear a hat with their initial on it. And this purple man was wearing an upside-down letter. An upside-down L. It was like a direct parody of Luigi.

The more Bowser thought about it, the less it made sense. He almost wondered if he had imagined the entire thing, but clearly Wario had seen the man too, and there was also that survivor of the attack who was getting treatment in the same hospital. He could only hope that Wario had recovered enough to speak on Monday, and Bowser could get some answers from him.

By the time he had logged back on to Chai's online network, the message boards were aflame with descriptions of the killer— tall, wearing dark purple, has a weird thin mustache, and an upside-down L on his hat. Very few people mentioned his similar appearance to Luigi of the Mushroom Kingdom. It seemed that since falling into his coma three years ago, the world had simply forgotten about Luigi.

Mostly the same for talk regarding Bowser, although he was mentioned a bit more, since his disappearance was considered a mystery, and there were several conspiracy theories regarding his fate. Luigi was boring, last seen asleep in a hospital bed and thus of no interest among the crowds.

But now here, there were some sparse mentions of Luigi— again, only to remark that it was funny that the purple man had an L on his hat, and so had Luigi of the Mushroom Kingdom.

In any case, Bowser thought wearily, at least he'll have to be caught soon. His appearance is pretty well known now. And in the daylight, it'd be a particularly obvious look.

Though, why would he wear the same clothes during the daytime? He probably wore purple to blend into the night. And if he had been wearing that outfit during the day, there would have probably already been some word about someone wearing such a silly fashion.

No, the fake Luigi (as Bowser was thinking of him at this time) would be wearing ordinary clothes during the daytime. And if he was smart, he'd hide away for at least a few days.

When Bowser returned to the hospital on Monday, he was admitted to Wario's room without very much trouble. A nurse told Bowser that Wario had largely recovered, though he was under doctor's orders to stay in the ward for another few days.

The room was reminiscent of the hospital rooms that Bowser remembered back in the Mushroom Kingdom: shockingly white, and coldly sparse. There was the hospital bed, Wario in the bed, a machine making noises and doing _something_, and a lone wooden chair against one wall, beside the bed.

There was at least a TV, too, wheeled in on a tray. It was in front of the bed. Wario was watching a program when Bowser came in. In the program, there were what seemed to be five businesspeople—four men and a woman—sitting in chairs, watching as someone demonstrated what looked like an invention in front of them.

Wario did not turn off the TV when Bowser came in, but simply turned the volume far down. "W-ell! You came to visit."

Bowser sat in the chair and awkwardly looked from the TV, back to Wario. "How are you? I mean… you seem better."

"Better than when I was having a heart attack? That's right." Wario grinned, but his smile quickly disappeared. "Eh."

An awkward silence followed for a moment.

"Well, I know why you're here." Wario was looking steadily at the TV. "You want to know who that was, eh? You thought it was Luigi."

Bowser swallowed and nodded. He knew Wario would scoff if Bowser said he was here to visit his friend. They were friends, but they didn't say that kind of stuff to each other.

"Maybe you did know Luigi, eh? You seemed to have about as much of a reaction as I did… minus the heart attack." Wario seemed to be about to chuckle, but he seemed to think better of it, and seized himself. "Eh. No, it wasn't Luigi."

He paused. His lower jaw was moving left and right as he sought for words. Finally, he reached for the remote and turned off the TV. The inventor was pleading to the five businesspeople when the screen blipped into darkness.

"No. That was my brother."

Wario was still staring off at the blank TV screen.

"I didn't know you had a brother..." Bowser said slowly.

"Almost no one does." Wario was still moving his jaw around, like he was trying to crack an ache out. "He'd always been a little off. The black sheep of the family. I'm not proud of how we treated him, exactly…"

He trailed off. Uncomfortable silence fell onto the room again.

"I want to confess, a little." Wario's eyes turned to Bowser's. "It's been something of a sin. I didn't like to think about it, and now... it's come back. He's come back."

Bowser nodded wordlessly.

Wario began to explain.


	12. Chapter 12: El Manana (Wario's Story)

Chapter Twelve: El Manana

"My brother was born...not quite right in the head. It was something genetic, I guess. He was not crazy, by any means, when he was little… just odd. He always reacted differently from the rest of us. This was back in the village we came from. Same as Mario and Luigi.

Anyway, he… his name, was Wallace, or Wally… he was always strange. He liked to go off on his own. When he played with the other kids, with us, something would happen, maybe, usually something very little, and he'd break into tears. Go absolutely, go violently into tears. As he got older, seven or eight, it wasn't just crying, he'd react a little violently. He'd hit people when he'd lose games. It wasn't right. Our parents… tried to discipline him, but it just made him angrier, worse. Later, he'd remember getting punished, and when he lost a game, or someone took something he wanted to play with, he'd hit even harder than before. It wasn't right.

He wasn't completely unstable though, I repeat. We both got through school. In our village, school finishes at age sixteen. Wally had made it through. His grades were nothing pretty, but he was able to graduate. I'd worked hard, I was determined to escape our little garbage village, make money, and live my dreams. I hated that place, and so did Wally… for completely different reasons. Wally couldn't be happy anywhere, he was, his mind was… off, plain off. We'd find out he was schizophrenic later, that's the term… when he got older, he fell right into the middle of that. But that's later.

Anyway, when he found out I was leaving the village to seek my fortune, he thought he'd do the same, because he wanted to find a place with "good people". So he said. He thought he'd try to come with me, at first, even though he didn't like me, but I quickly put an end to that idea. I left in the middle of the night, with my parents' blessings, and headed for the cities of the Mushroom Kingdom.

As I heard it, Wally nearly lost it when he found out I made my escape. He threw a fit and destroyed some property in the village. Defaced a public sculpture, even. He was almost kicked out right then and there, but everyone knew he was disabled, and it wasn't clear how far he'd get on his own. So my parents put him under a kind of house arrest. He was seventeen by that point. God, I'm sorry for ma and pa.

Now, you know, Mario and Luigi of the Mushroom Kingdom are my cousins. And they grew up in the same village as we did. They were younger, so they were still in the village school when this all happened. They also had plans to leave the village, and their situation was a little like mine and Wally's, actually. Mario wanted to go out and do something great. Make the world a better place somehow. Ah, he'd always had a good heart, I guess. Luigi, meanwhile, was a little off. Not like Wally, back then. He was just more introverted. I think he was envious of Mario's popularity, or something. But he had a kind of menace about him back then, I'll be honest. I'm not coloring him by what happened later.

Anyway, as it turned out, Luigi and Wally became friends somehow. I suppose they sensed their similar dispositions. Both felt outcast, maybe lesser than their brothers. It surprised me when I first heard about it later that Luigi could stand being around Wally very much, considering what I remembered of Wally's behavior, but so it turned out, Luigi was able to make a pretty good servant out of my brother. And that really was how it was— Wally became Luigi's dedicated servant.

I don't know what had happened, but Luigi had done something, or said something, and it impressed Wally to no end. By the time the two of them left the village, Wally practically worshipped Luigi. It was like the prophet and his follower. There was something about Luigi that obsessed Wally. Maybe he was just the only person who was ever really able to understand Wally, or who gave Wally any kind of real attention or respect… I don't know. I admit, my family tried, and I tried, a little… maybe not as much as I should have… to help Wally, but we were never successful. Luigi succeeded where we failed, it seems.

So Luigi, and Wally, and Mario all left the village around the same time. Mario quickly went his separate way, I don't blame him. Jump ahead a few years, and he's getting good with Princess Peach. Meanwhile, Luigi and Wally are off somewhere, traveling, hatching schemes. I don't know for sure what they were doing. I just know that by the time I met Wally again, he was all twisted round Luigi's finger. It was bad. Wally was fully delusional by this point. He was seeing things, hearing visions. I don't know if his whole life had been leading to this condition, but it had really sprouted during his time with Luigi, and Luigi… Luigi had encouraged it. I guess I have to believe that. Because Wally knew Luigi as some kind of savior or something. That Luigi was destined to do great things, that the 'voices'...God, I guess… had told him so. And there Luigi was still traveling with him, not saying no to any of it.

If I had been a better brother, I would have put my foot down right there. I would have told Luigi to wank off, I would have brought Wally back to the village, and gotten him some kind of treatment. If I had been a better person. But I… though I was disturbed, I was mostly happy Wally was out of everyone's hands. Mine, my poor parents, and the others in the village. If he and Luigi wanted to go around like a couple of freaks, causing trouble… well, as long as my brother was eating and getting some shelter… back then, I didn't give a damn.

Eld, how I regret it now.

It wasn't more than a year later before Luigi had enough. He was sick of playing master to a sick kid like Wally. He said goodbye, sayonara, auf wiedersehen, and went off to join his brother, Mario, in the central Mushroom Kingdom. He wanted some of the hero action, I guess. And he got it. But he dropped Wally like a rock, threw him away like a dish rag.

No, it wasn't good. Wally held himself together alright at first. He believed it was a test, that Luigi would come back to him. That if he waited where he was, everything would go back to normal. But it didn't. Now Wally was running around all over, trying to find Luigi— Luigi hadn't become famous yet. He even came back to the home village, and my parents saw him again… that's how they found out about this, and told me too. Wally had lost his mind, was following voices and visions, was trying to find Luigi. Most disturbing of all, not being able to find Luigi, he was already starting to pretend… he was starting to pretend that he was Luigi. That he was Luigi and Wally, he couldn't stand the thought of being alone in the world again. He started calling himself "Wa-Luigi", Waluigi, like he had put the names together. It was craziness.

I bet Luigi was hiding himself then, knowing what he had done, because though Wally ran all over the damn place, he couldn't figure out where Luigi was. He eventually came to my new place, in Diamond City, and began to cause trouble. He didn't know what to do, so he just started robbing people, trying to get attention. He was alone in the world, and was screaming for someone to see him.

Well, they saw him alright. He was caught and thrown into jail. I found out about what had happened to him by a stroke of luck, and posted bail. I tried to talk with him, but he was gone by this point. Wally insisted he was Waluigi. He wasn't Wally or Luigi, but Waluigi. Nothing he said made sense.

I tried to get him to go home, but it was no use. He started doing things again. He was attacking people in a park when he was arrested again. By that point, I decided there was nothing else I could do— I had him sent to a hospital. The kind you don't walk out of for a long time. I hoped he could get help. I didn't know what else to do.

I wanted to tell that sonuvabitch Luigi what he had done, but I know he wouldn't have given a damn. I remember him. I heard years later he had tried to kill himself, and ended up in a hospital, in a deep coma. He may have been a hero to some, but I know him as the guy who twisted up my brother, and left him out in the sun to bake.

I know I'm to blame too. I know. And now Wally's come back, and he's starting to hurt people."


	13. Chapter 13: The Gash

Chapter Thirteen: The Gash

Wario sighed. The story seemed to have worn him out.

"Wow," Bowser said. "I'm… sorry. About that. All of that."

What else could he say?

"Yah, well…" Wario scratched his head. "There's nothing to be sorry about, for you. You've got nothing to do with it. I just felt like confessing to you, 'cause… ehh, you're a kind person!"

Bowser drew back a little in his chair. "...Huh?"

"There's a reason you got way more friends than I do." Wario grinned a little. "Eh. You look like I hit you."

Bowser's mouth twitched a little. "Oh. Well… just unexpected…"

There was a pause.

"What do you mean I have more friends than you do?!" Bowser threw his hands up in the air. "You have a whole company…"

"Yeh, and you think any of them came to visit me here?" Wario smiled sadly. "We're co-workers, is all. I mean, what they're doing is right… the company's going public soon. Things are busy. Got to keep the train rolling."

"No. They could stop for a moment. Just to visit for a moment. Make sure you're alright…"

"Heh heh." Wario waved a hand. "You're a good guy. You think you're evil or something, but… Don't give me that look! I can see it on your gloomy face. I don't know what you did, but whatever it was, you need to forgive yourself."

Bowser said nothing.

"I hope you know… whatever you got to say, I'll listen… Just like you've listened for me."

Bowser's first thoughts were defensive. It was a trap, he felt— Wario had revealed a great secret in his own life, and now, in order to be "fair", he, Bowser, was expected to reveal his own great secret. But there was no way he was going to do that. No, he couldn't. He had been a horrible, evil king. And his punishment… surely, his punishment, had been his useless love for Peach.

**Kill yourself**

The thought bloomed instantly in his mind, poisonous flower out of nowhere. Bowser shivered. The thought was gone just as quickly as it came.

"Well, you don't need to tell me anything." Wario smiled a little. "Just… so you know… ANYWAY, thank you for visiting me. And listening. You're a good listener."

Bowser shrugged. "Thanks." He felt like he had just tried to be a decent person— it was all he could do to try to make up for years of awfulness. He was just trying a little, and though he felt he failed to be good most of the time, he had ended up receiving such unexpected words.

A nurse came in at that very moment, and seeing Wario's somewhat tired condition, shot Bowser a dirty look— whatever they had been discussing, it had affected the patient.

"Visiting hours are almost over," She said tightly.

"Yes. Alright." Bowser stood and nearly raised his hands in a defensive gesture. He laughed at himself inside for the near overreaction, and headed for the door.

He turned back and nodded to Wario. "Well, uh… get well soon, as they say."

"Yeah." Wario nodded back goodbye, and turned back to his TV. As Bowser was closing the door, the nurse was fiddling with the medical machine in the room, and Wario was reaching for the TV remote.

As usual, his thoughts quickly became about himself— all of the proofs that he wasn't a good person. How could Wario have called him kind? Bowser was evil… or he had been evil… and if he was anything now, he was amoral, or empty, or whatever…

No, there was no use to it. Don't think about it.

He was walking out of the hospital when he realized that Wario hadn't mentioned his wife at all. Surely she had visited him?

Actually, Bowser wasn't even sure if she lived in Chai. He had seen pictures of her on Wario's phone, and he had heard about how Wario had met her in the Mushroom Kingdom, but he had never seen her in person, or heard about what she did in Chai.

But, there was a simple explanation: Wario had talked about how many _friends_ had visited him in the hospital. That didn't include his wife. His wife was not his friend. She would be a valued partner. Beyond friends.

A wave of despair washed over Bowser, then vanished again. There was the rub— so he had claimed himself asexual, and he was thinking way less than before. And yet, despite all that, he still couldn't stop himself from feeling awful sometimes, for no reason at all. And oh so rarely did he feel really happy.

Is it just the sentient condition? Must all living things exist like this? The Buddha said life was suffering, but that was some pessimistic Eastern stuff— wasn't it? Bowser mostly chalked it up as stuff for old people who were tired of life. In the ancient West, though, Herodotus wrote that no man could be called happy until he dies. It didn't matter if he was quoting someone else, he presented it in his own work without refuting it.

(Perhaps he had misinterpreted the idea; for now it was evidence.)

So then, with this idea of common unhappiness, who are these stupid smiling people all around me? Bowser thought. And what a coincidence… they are always in pairs, man and woman.

Hot fury seized him. How ridiculous, he thought, I am asexual. I am still failing to accept… that I am not meant to be with anyone… that I don't need anyone… that I can't be with anyone… that it doesn't matter.

Now he was caught up in this furious cyclone of thoughts. In the midst of it, a motionless core, a quiet voice emerged:

"It doesn't matter if you're asexual or not. It doesn't matter what word you use.

What is fundamentally true, the fundamental fact, is that no matter what you do, whether you try your hardest, or do not try at all, whether you attempt to control everything, or control nothing, no matter what happens, whether you believe that you can, or believe that you can't (as you are doing now), regardless of any circumstances at all, whether free will exists, or whether fate and god determines everything, or whether the universe is empty of a higher being and there are only cold mechanical rules of physics, no matter what, whatever the case, regardless of any possible configuration of existence—

You cannot find love."

Bowser had wandered into a park by this point. He sat down on a bench and tried to focus on his breath.

"That is why your thinking is useless. Because no matter what you do, nothing changes. That is why you do not believe in free will."

He was thinking about his breath, but the steady stream kept coming.

"Your lack of love is the source of your pain. And it will continue to be your pain, and there is nothing you can do about it. There is nothing you can do about it, and that is the awful, painful truth you have been trying to find the words to escape. You think that by thinking you can find a way out, you think if you make the right plan, or have the right understanding of God, or figure out whatever the secrets of the unconscious mind are, you can find that apparent bliss. You can find a way out of your suffering. You have failed to accept that you are absolutely powerless."

Bowser felt like he wanted to cry. But he hadn't been able to cry for three years.

"Why would God make it like this?" He asked out loud.

"Very simple. There is no God, idiot."

Yes, well… now, Bowser realized, he had been thinking from an assumption that God existed. He wasn't sure how he had gotten to that point. He had never appreciated church, and he followed so much of science— a framework that ran without God. But still, somewhere along the way, he had come to believe… somehow… that there was a plan. It was an underlying faith he had picked up, so that he could believe that everything would work out in the end. It was an unconscious crutch he had been using, so that he could believe that though things had been very unhappy, surely it was all building up to something wonderful, a happy ending.

If you had asked Bowser directly, he would have answered honestly that he didn't know if there was a God or not, that it was impossible to know, but that it wasn't too outrageous of an idea— just based on how well structured the universe was, it seemed God was possible. His unconscious self, however, had continued to believe in a God, some kind of God, who had a great plan, a really beautiful thing, that would all work out in the end. Especially for him, Bowser.

And now, these thoughts he was having were stripping these assumptions all clear. What was easier: to believe that he was part of a plan that involved his constant, pointless suffering? Or that there was no plan at all?

"If there is a god, you are their battery." The calm voice continued. "Some people get to be generally happy, and some people are batteries."

A cold wind blew.

"What does that mean?" Bowser growled, achingly.

But the other voice had faded, dissipated right into the air. It was gone.

"I won't accept that." Bowser shivered. "No. There is simply no god, and…"

No matter what he said or thought, he felt awful. Whatever it said about god, the first thing the voice had said was true— and Bowser had to face that. That no matter what, regardless of anything that happened or didn't happen, he, Bowser, lived a seemingly loveless existence.

_We only get what we give_ an annoying voice sang in his head.

What the fuck can I give? He steamed. Love. Would he even know it if he encountered it? If he was broken enough, he couldn't give or get love, then?

Or was love what he had… had for art? Music, poetry, stories, paintings… A sense of elation he could not feel for people?

If he was so broken, it was probably all from things that happened before the age of six or seven. What other hopeless situation could lead to all of this? He could think over the rest of his life, as far as he could remember, and try to find what had broken him, but nothing made sense. Just Peach? Just Peach? No. He couldn't have hungered after her so badly unless he already had a hole torn into him sometime before, some time in the distant past.

Because his parents were dead? That wasn't reason enough, was it?

STOP THINKING MOTHERFUCKER!

He heaved a great sigh and threw himself off the park bench. He was going home.

_Still the battle… _

_that we're in… _

_rages on… _

_till the end_


	14. Chapter 14: Telephasic Workshop

Chapter Fourteen: Telephasic Workshop

He was too self-absorbed, he decided later. And that was an easy enough conclusion. It was because he was constantly fretting over himself that all these thoughts, circling around him, made him feel so much pain. And because he thought so little about others, his thoughts, instead of being about easy concepts like people, were generally abstract monstrosities.

He had to try to think more about other people. Try to help other people, somehow.

His students loved him, anyway. It was true. In excited Mushroom language they would literally scream out: "I love you teacher!". Bowser had brushed this off as some weird exaggeration at first, but they kept doing it. Then, when he was talking with another teacher, the teacher mentioned the students' love of Bowser.

"Eh…? Ha ha…" Bowser scratched the back of his head.

So maybe people did love him, after all. And he did feel the edges of it— but his soul quickly snapped away from such feeling. Like filling a jug with water, but his jug-heart was very small, and hearing about any of this love caused the jug to quickly overfill and make him uncomfortable.

Could he (haha), like the Grinch (haha), make his heart bigger?

Maybe if he did charity, or something, he imagined. But he didn't want to do charity. He was busy enough.

Now see, that's why you're always going to be unhappy, he thought. You don't do charity, so you're a bad person.

Many people don't do charity, and they are perfectly happy! Bowser fumed. But here he was thinking about himself again. Time to stop.

Thoughts about Wario's brother came around in his head in a serious manner for the first time since Bowser had visited Wario. He guessed it had been so easy for him to stop thinking about the whole thing, in part because of his relief that it wasn't Luigi— and thus, it wasn't Bowser's fault that there was a scary weirdo attacking people in Chai.

There's your selfishness again, he thought. You should be thinking of the tragedy of the victims, and how Wario must feel.

That's for women to feel so much damned empathy!, He thought… and actually stopped breathing for a moment in surprise.

...All that empathy is for women and priests.

...And I'm neither of those things. He nodded his head.

But here he was, still thinking thinking thinking about himself.

Now, if only he had that serial killer Wa...Waluigi chasing after him. (Haha) Then he wouldn't have time to think anymore. (Haha) If he threw himself into danger…

Maybe he should volunteer for the Mushroom Kingdom's PeaceCore group, that went into dangerous countries and tried to help poor villages. That was a selfless, somewhat dangerous thing, wasn't it?

Then again, he wondered what kind of paperwork he needed. He, as totally-not-Bowser-Koopa of the former Koopa Kingdom, had virtually none.

I know, he thought, I'll go back to the priest in the woods and ask him to whip some paperwork up for me. Official Mushroom Kingdom citizenry, with my new name stamped on it. (Haha)

What a world. King of the Koopa Kingdom… now a random teacher in Sarasaland.

His thoughts returned to Wario's story, and Waluigi. Now there was something that had nothing to do with him. It was okay to think about it.

...But after all, wasn't it a relief that this Waluigi had nothing to do with him? He, Bowser, didn't have to concern himself with that crazy human. The police would catch him soon enough.

And now, it was funny, how certain Bowser had been that the shadow had been Luigi. There was really not so much reason to believe it was Luigi, after all— all Bowser had really seen was a tall human, wearing a cap. To automatically believe it was Luigi was ridiculous.

It was a psychological thing. Some part of Bowser had been expecting to meet Luigi again. What had happened three years ago, when they had both been ruminating on the unhappiness of their lives… that grotesque friendship had left a kind of mark. And Bowser had been carrying that mark around in his head like a peculiar outline, so that when a suitable form came along in the real world, it filled up the outline, like a key in a hole, and Bowser had been instantly, semi-unconsciously forced to believe it was Luigi on his tail before any other conclusion could be made.

Yes… how many mistakes did Bowser make, automatically, not even knowing that there was the _possibility_ for mistake, only to find out a month or year later that he had been fundamentally mistaken from the start? How could he make progress at all, if every step (and every moment without a step, when nothing even seemed to happen at all!) was another mistake occurring, to be discovered dug up as a corpse a million instances later?

Oh, you fool, he thought. What you do is that you don't think about it, as we already know.

But—a pesky voice insisted (he was powerless!)—even as you stop from thinking about it, you are simply ignoring the fact that you continue to make mistakes, and you continue to constantly hurt people.

Now he had to stop and consider this. Hurting people. It was like he had just now caught the vision of a tail of wind sneaking past, he caught out of the corner of his eye a ghost that had been following him, and just now, for the first time, he had seen it. It was a ghost of pain. And it followed a very simple rule, that created an automatic thought process for Bowser:

"In every interaction you have, you are doing something that makes the other person unhappy."

He was just now unearthing this inherent assumption he had been carrying with him for god-knew-how-long. And it explained many sources of pain.

As the week continued after visiting Wario, Bowser began to catch the ghost as he talked with people— talked with other teachers, talked with the occasional acquaintance he ran into on the street. He sensed the unhappiness that most people carried, and his mind machine, after walking away from the other person, began to create explanations for why the other person had been unhappy or dissatisfied (or, if necessary, made up the idea that they were unhappy at all) and quickly began to find explanations related to Bowser's behavior to show why it was his fault they were not happy.

"You didn't smile enough. When people do not see another person smiling, they get unhappy."

"You didn't use their name. That made them unhappy."

"They could sense the little bit of dislike you feel for them, even though you acted politely, they felt that corner of emotion, and felt pain."

"You just carry sadness with you, and it makes other people sad automatically."

And every self-appointed piece of blame brought that cold, sharp snap of pain. Part of the sky breaking open.

And the conversation had been happening without him even realizing it! He hadn't even connected that he felt particularly grieved when he happened to reflect on his conversations and interactions with other people!

Evil, diabolical machine, Bowser thought. If I could just put a gun to my head and blow all the gray matter out… just walk around with half a head, no thoughts… what a happy guy I'd be!

But this was already exaggerating. He was already aware of the potential he had unearthed by realizing this monstrous connection of thoughts. Every conversation now, he was "catching the ghost"— he could already see the explanation for what he was doing wrong, with the prepared blast of mental pain energy to follow, and he could deny it right then and there, pluck out the poisonous plant by its roots.

He had been taking the pain of the world on himself. How had that happened? When had that happened?

...It was a useless mystery. Same as the source of asexuality. Same as how he could have become so infatuated with a person that didn't like him back.

Some tome described it somewhere— the exact conditions of libidinal attraction, death drives, the Real. If you wanted to remove the last shred of humanity you had left, you could read it and be more fully aware of yourself, what you wanted to call your soul, as an infernal machine.

And knowing exactly how the glass jar had shattered into a million pieces years ago would not make it any more possible to put it back together again.

But in the present, here, he could find this ghost, and stop its tracks. A clear consciousness, a never-ending present, was a very fine thing after all— wasn't it? The past was past, and the present was eternal. Perhaps, maybe, after all… the puzzle of the center could be solved. The realization of his asexuality was one thing. Now this "capturing of the ghost"... after years of mire, spiraling uselessness, was it possible to solve the puzzle after all?

What did the solution look like? What was the ideal condition? Lasting happiness? Was it possible?

He shook his head. No use guessing about it. He had never been able to predict the future before. Wouldn't be able to now. Could he have guessed he would be a teacher two years ago? Could he have guessed he would end up in Sarasaland three years ago? Could he have guessed he would be transformed four years ago? Could he have guessed he would have ever given up on Peach seven years ago?

Heh. Heh heh. No, the future was unknowable.


	15. Chapter 15: BfDH (2nd Encounter)

Chapter Fifteen: Blues From Down Here

Yes, the future was unknowable.

Maybe it was fate deciding to teach by example, when, just three days after Bowser had visited Wario in the hospital, he encountered Waluigi again.

Now he knew who Waluigi was, and apparently—

"Bowser, my friend."

—Waluigi knew who he was.

The voice held the same cadence as Luigi and Mario and Wario's— them all being from the same village, it only made sense. In contrast, however, this voice was nasally, and perpetually tinged with a kind of whine.

Most of Bowser was surprised at the voice. A very small part of him nodded along like this was some inevitability.

The man was leaning back against the brick of an old curved building. Perhaps he was trying to look cool, his lanky arms crossed, but at the same time he was standing amidst strewn piles of trash and discarded fruit. On the brick wall behind him was a faded poster of a hunched purple form amassed in shadows, the words FREE TATANGA struck in red at the bottom. The man leaning on the wall was tall, wearing dark clothing (probably purple, it was hard to tell in these shadows)... a familiar hat— with an unfamiliar upside-down L. It was the same human Bowser had seen five days ago.

Bowser had thought that by this point he had discovered the truth, the funny truth— that the tragedy happening in Chai had nothing to do with him, and he had been projecting his own bad memories onto an anonymous villain. His friend Wario was directly tied to the thing (the thing being Wallace or Waluigi, whichever you preferred) but he, Bowser, did not need to feel guilty or worried, because the solution of the matter had nothing to do with him. Waluigi's psychosis was tied to Wario and Luigi, not Bowser.

But still, things weren't that simple.

"Heh heh heh."

A small grin peeked out under the bloated nose.

"Yes, I know it's you. My friend."

He repeated the last word meaningfully, like willing it to be true.

Bowser still didn't get the gist. He was fumbling to put the pieces together in his mind. "What?"

Waluigi detached himself from off the wall. Bowser took a step back.

"I know it's you, Bowser." Waluigi shivered. "Yes. You called me by one of my names. You knew… you thought… it was me. You must be the old King of the Koopas."

_From the...depths, I...called...you..._

Now Bowser was starting to get it. He was beginning to frown, frown deeply.

"And then He came around, and He said, Yes, it's true, it is Bowser, King of the Koopas. He is a Koopa and he has the face of a king, I tell you it—not by what's on the flesh, but by the eyes—that's what He said, and I knew it was true." Waluigi fidgeted as he spoke. "My old friend, I'd recognize you anywhere."

Bowser couldn't believe this. "You don't know me."

"Of course I know you. Heh, we used to fight a lot. Me and Mario and you. And then… and then, us, we two, were friends. And we both decided to leave this world. But this world wouldn't let us leave, would it? We both survived, we both woke up. And now we're both here, in Chai, in Sarasaland. It's funny. This staged life is strange."

You lunatic, Bowser was thinking, You don't know anything about me.

"Yes, when we talked… you said you would come to Sarasaland. I was looking for someone else, actually…

He was telling me about That, you know…

But by an accident, we met too, I think. It had to be… I had an idea, that maybe in Sarasaland, you'd be here too..."

Bowser's jaw dropped a little. "Wait. How do you know that? About Sarasaland?"

Once, during the darkest times, Bowser had talked with Luigi about things they still had the desire to do. The last few ideas that held any interest in at all— dust-in-the-wind dreams, though they were. And one of Bowser's ideas was that he had wanted to see Sarasaland once, that "strange" Eastern land that ended up not being so strange after all.

Yes, he had mentioned that to Luigi, that one time. But otherwise, it was something he had never told anyone else.

Waluigi put a finger up to the side of his head. "You're confused, because you see me. But I'm here too, Bowser. It's both of us. I am both of us. I figured it out. I figured out how to be complete."

"No, really," Now Bowser was beginning to freak out a little, "How did you know about me wanting to come to Sarasaland? How did you know that?"

"There."

The lanky man struck the full length of his arm out, snapping out, pointing straight into Bowser's face.

"You admit it— you are Bowser. King of the Koopas."

"I'm king of jack shit!" Bowser swiped the hand away like batting a fly. "Now how did you know about me wanting to come to Sarasaland? You're not Luigi."

"That's right. I'm Waluigi."

Crazy son of a bitch!

"You are delusional," Bowser growled, "Your name is Wallace. Your brother is Wario."

"That's true. I am also Luigi. I am Wallace and Luigi. I am Waluigi."

Bowser knew that he was arguing with what was effectively a madman, but there was still some weird rationality behind the man's words, and now Bowser had to know how Waluigi knew what he knew.

(Wario's estimate was off, Bowser decided. You couldn't just call Waluigi schizophrenic. Most people with schizophrenia were harmless. Waluigi had gotten twisted around into some special condition.)

Bowser listed off the points like from a list: "Luigi is in a hospital bed in the Mushroom Kingdom. He's in a coma. He's been asleep for three years. You're not him."

Waluigi spread his arms. "I am there, and I am here. With His guidance, I can be anywhere."

_Carry me through these shark infested waters_

"And who is 'He'? Luigi?"

"No. I am Luigi. I am Wallace. _He_ is outside. He is outside all of us. But He is also inside of me. He is my protector, my holy spirit. He has brought me here, and through his guidance, I found you again."

"What about Wario?"

"I want nothing to do with Wario. He is one of my spiritual enemies."

Bowser thought back to five days ago— Waluigi's breakdown, his strange crying, must have been at seeing Wario. He was certainly more fluent now.

"Alright. So what do you want then? Why are you killing people?"

Waluigi's face turned grim. "I am not killing people. I am killing women."

Bowser shook his head. "Why?"

"Because!" Waluigi barked. "Because— she— she was the one that killed Luigi! She killed me!"

Bowser blinked. "What?"

"Daisy!" Waluigi's eyes narrowed. "Daisy! Daisy of Sarasaland! It was her! She killed Luigi! I am only part of Luigi, because of her. So I will devour her, I will kill her, and I will release Luigi's spirit, and I will be whole again!"

Bowser couldn't keep his cool— he finally snapped. "What are you talking about, you nutcase?!"

"It's all here!" Waluigi shouted, and he stuck his right hand into his pants. Not into his pockets— literally into his pants, into the space of his underwear, digging around. Bowser instinctively looked away as Waluigi fumbled in his pants. Seconds later the bow-legged man whipped out a bent envelope, waving it up in the air.

"This!" He shouted. "Before Luigi died, before part of him died, he wrote it all down. And he explained everything! That witch, Daisy— he died because of her!"

Bowser realized that the envelope had to be Luigi's suicide note. The one that Wario had mentioned a while back. Now everything was falling into place.

Goddamnit, Luigi, he thought. What the hell had he written in there?— Had he blamed his relationship with Daisy for his fall into despair? More importantly, had he outright blamed Daisy, had he said it was her fault, for his misery? Three years ago, when Luigi had talked with Bowser, he had pretty generally blamed himself. But when it had come time to make a final account, had he written about what had happened differently?

Or had Waluigi simply misinterpreted the note?

"Give me that," Bowser said as calmly as he could.

"This is private!" Waluigi snapped. "From Luigi's heart to Luigi's heart. Not even friends can see it."

"But he… but you left it for other people to read, right?"

"No." Waluigi stuffed the envelope back into his pants. "It was from Luigi to Luigi. No one else can understand what Luigi went through. What I went through. Not you! You didn't understand my pain. We may both be hurt by the world, but you still think this world is fully here." Waluigi stamped a foot on the ground. "You've never talked with a spirit."

A spirit! Good grief.

"He puts us on trial. The ones who are worthy, He tortures us until we start to see right through the world. Then, finally, in the complete darkness, He will speak to you. But he has to break you first. He can't speak to you, you can't hear Him, until you've lost all hope. You get it?"

Madman, Bowser thought. Madman, nutcase... and I feel like his mania is infecting me.

"I know you think I'm crazy." Waluigi rubbed at the brim of his cap with his forefingers and thumb. "Yeah. Everyone thought I was crazy… You don't see, spiritually, how far I've come since we last met. Yeah. You haven't changed at all, but me… I met Him, and I'm saved. No matter what, He is protecting me. I will succeed. It is inevitable."

"Succeed in assassinating the Princess Daisy?" Bowser shuddered. "You'll never even get close. She lives in a castle, surrounded by guards. She's had a world-famous security group for years."

"That's why I'm practicing. I'll practice on others first." Waluigi made a violent gesture. "The more I practice, the more spiritual energy I get. And then, He will deliver her to me, somehow. It's certain. I am His servant. And when Daisy is dead, the world will end. Finally. You should want this too, Bowser. I'm telling you this because you should help me. The world will end, and a better one will be born."

_Time for your favorite story_

Waluigi sighed.

"Because this world is really small. It's a small world. There's only a few pieces… though it's so complicated, so much sometimes… with His help I boiled it down, and I found the key pieces, the few parts that matter. The parts with the most threads, the parts that connect with the most others. If we break one of those parts, the whole Thing can be flipped over."

A sound echoed from down the alleyway. Waluigi's head turned towards the darkness, and his lips pulled back in a snarl. He looked back at Bowser, and Bowser was struck with a weird fear— something different, new, was breaking through Waluigi. Something altogether animalistic and primal.

But that moment passed too, and Waluigi changed again. "Goodbye."

The farewell was so abrupt that Bowser was only aware what was happening when Waluigi, bow legs moving faster than seemed possible, was almost out of the other end of the alleyway.

Wait— Bowser was going to call. But his breath caught in his lungs. He didn't want to be around Waluigi, but part of him was still curious about him... and part of him thought there was some way of detaining Waluigi, and getting the police to him. But his body knew (some deeper part of him altogether) that to listen anymore to Waluigi was dangerous, and that Waluigi was not going to stay there long enough for the police to come.

Walking, walking. The ones coming down the alleyway were a man and woman— a couple. Upon seeing Bowser, the woman pressed up against the man, and the man threw a protective arm around the woman. The two walked a little faster, past Bowser and out the other end of the alleyway.

Bowser smirked to himself. His anger sunk into the deep before it could go anywhere else.


	16. Chapter 16: IWS (Dark Land 1)

Chapter Sixteen: Interlude With Sailboat

What about Wario? How much could Bowser tell Wario about that encounter with Waluigi— without telling Wario that Bowser was Bowser?

Any of it?

Waluigi had no reason to talk to Bowser, except for his belief that he Waluigi was Luigi, and that Bowser was Bowser. So really, Bowser could probably not tell Wario about any of it— except for the fact that Bowser had seen Waluigi again. And then, the plain idea that Waluigi was still out in Chai's streets… was an idea that was fundamentally obvious as long as Wario was aware of the local news.

So, there was nothing to say. Unless Bowser admitted he was Bowser.

(And even then, would the story of the encounter be helpful to Wario at all?)

To Bowser, it seemed the most likely solution to this entire "Waluigi problem" (giving it a name like that made it a little farther away, more of an abstract thing to solve) was for Wario to talk with his brother, come to terms with him, and convince him to turn himself in. Waluigi was distinctly affected by Wario. They were family, after all.

It was only by some unfortunate nonsense that Waluigi had made a connection between himself and Bowser— that of the belief that he was simultaneously part-Luigi, and therefore he and Bowser knew each other from before.

This was still a huge relief compared to before, when Bowser believed it was Luigi himself out there. Bowser was involved with this situation now only because of the delusions of a person he didn't really know. That was frustrating and annoying (and frightening).

But it wasn't so strange, after all. The delusion of one person is often the reason for our most unpleasant encounters at any time or place in life.

This case was just a little more extreme.

Part of him thought he might be taking all of this a little too nonchalantly. Another part said that he was being properly levelheaded, that it was good to think with this coolness and rationality, rather than break down in fright or something.

In any case, Waluigi was not coming to kill him. Waluigi believed that Bowser was his friend. And in that case, maybe Bowser could convince Waluigi to stop what he was doing.

Good luck with that, chappie, part of him thought.

Still...still… it was worth trying. As long as we have willpower… we should try to do things. If you feel like you have the potential to try, you may as well… because other times you'll have no strength at all, and you won't even have a chance.

In this case, it would just be a matter of running into Waluigi again. That was, if Waluigi wasn't found by the police first.

Ehh. Eh eh eh…

It was a little while after that— a few days later, during the next weekend— when it began to snow in Chai. It was on that night {vaguely}, with the snow falling from the black empyrean {sacred}, that Bowser wandered down a series of stairs, and found himself in Dark Land again.

It was that old Koopa Kingdom inspired bar, with newspaper clippings and a flag and photos and art.

_Former King Bowser Koopa disappears!_

Bowser hadn't been there for three months. He had frankly forgotten where the bar was, and had mostly wandered back in by chance.

Now he was there again, and the old mystery of who owned the bar returned to him.

He looked to the counter. There was a young koopa there bartending, younger than him— probably just barely eighteen, maybe nineteen. It was unlikely he was the owner… and upon further recollection, Bowser remembered a middle-aged koopa had been bartending during his last visit three months ago.

In the bar, besides Bowser and the bartender, there were only two goombas in a corner, talking quietly over mugs.

"Good evening," Bowser greeted, "Is the owner here tonight?"

The young koopa was wiping a mug clean with a cloth. He looked up. "The owner?"

The question hung. "Yes… the owner of this pub. The owner of Dark Land."

"Hmmmm…" The younger koopa frowned, almost looking confused. "How do you know… I'm not the owner?"

The question hung.

"I don't know you're not the owner," Bowser admitted, "But I remember an older koopa being here the last time I visited. About three months ago."

"So what? Maybe he works for me."

Bowser couldn't tell if he was the victim of some joke or not. Maybe the bartender wanted him to buy a drink?

Bowser sat down. "OK, if it makes things easier, I'll have a… Soft Shell." His hands settled on the countertop. "So… are you the owner?"

The bartender smiled a little, not moving. "You think I'm too young to be the owner, right?"

"...Yes."

"You think someone my age can't appreciate the Koopa Kingdom of old, right?"

"No. You're not that young. You could have lived there as a child."

The koopa closed one eye. "You don't know how old I am. I may be very old, with a youthful appearance."

"I doubt it." Now Bowser was getting irritated. "I don't think I'd have this kind of conversation with an older person."

"No? ...Hm. Maybe you're right. Maybe... I'm the one who's confused." And he stepped back, teetering a little.

Bowser couldn't believe this. Did this bartender act this way with all of his customers? Had the goombas in the corner had to put up with it? Bowser glanced back at them, but they were still in the same place, chatting with each other.

"Can I have my drink, please?" Bowser turned back and brought some money out. "Soft Shell."

"Right…" The koopa glanced down at the money and put the glass he was cleaning away. "...Soft Shell… I'll need to go into the back for that one…"

Bowser shrugged. "OK." He'd had enough. Maybe the conversation would be easier to deal with if he was a little drunk.

The koopa walked down the area behind the counter and disappeared through a doorway of swinging flaps. Two minutes later, a different koopa walked out— it was the older person that Bowser had remembered from before.

"Good evening," The older koopa said, "Change of shift. ...Had you ordered a drink?"

"Yes," Bowser swallowed his exasperation, "Soft Shell. Please."

"Mm. You ordered already, didn't you? I apologize. The bartender who was working at this counter before me is a bit troubled. Two months ago he received some incredible, frankly preposterous news, and has not entirely recovered since. I think he is getting better, but it is a very slow going. His conversation tends to be rattled… his sense of rationality towards the world and himself has toppled over."

Bowser raised an eyebrow. "Bad news?"

"It was neither good nor bad. It was quite neutral. There were bad aspects to the news, and good aspects. On the whole, the good aspects balanced out the bad aspects, and ultimately, when one reviewed the entire situation, they would feel neither particularly better nor particularly worse about life, whether in a personal or overall sense. But regardless, it was a very surprising and altogether perspective-shifting thing, and ultimately, the bartender you talked to previously had his ways of perceiving and reacting to the world altogether shifted. Hopefully for the shorter, rather than longer, term."

Bowser was unconsciously chewing on the end of one finger. "Is it a good story?"

"It would make an incredible story, there is no doubt. Both the original news, including the history leading up to the events described in the news, and the initial reactions and fallout from the other bartender you spoke to receiving the said news. However, I am afraid it is of a supremely private nature, and it is by funny chance, really its own strange and necessarily detailed story, that even I learned of the news. That story, related more directly to myself, is also of a supremely private nature, due to its intimate relations to the aforementioned initial news in terms of chronology, connected events, and some of the persons involved. Therefore, in summary, I am afraid that I could not tell you about any of the matter at all."

Bowser blinked twice. He felt like he was under some spell.

"Okay." Bowser's fingers scratched slightly into the top of the counter. "Can I… get my drink, please?"

"Of course, sir. I merely wanted you to understand, to the fullest extent possible, the details of the unideal situation you experienced a moment ago, and understand why your drink and regular service was heretofore delayed."

"Okay, I understand. Please. The Soft Shell."

"Right away, sir."

The bartender had returned with the drink and Bowser had choked down about half of it before he remembered his original inquiry.

"Say," He asked the bartender, who was now rubbing at a mug the same way the younger bartender had been going at it, "Are you the owner of this pub?"

The bartender looked up with concern. "The... owner, sir?"

It was weird enough getting called 'sir' repeatedly in a pub— a word he didn't remember the bartender using the last time he was there. But now this questioning again?

"Yes, the owner. Are you, the koopa currently bartending, the owner of this pub, named Dark Land? Do you own it?"

"Oh, no, sir. I do not own any establishment like this. I am not the owner, I am merely a bartender."

Bowser nodded. "OK. Can I meet the owner?"

The bartender stared straight ahead at Bowser, not reacting at all, nor saying anything. Maybe five seconds passed, just long enough to be uncomfortable.

"You want to meet the owner? Well… Are you sure?"

Bowser blinked. His old self would have slammed a fist on the counter and yelled, but now, he just said calmly: "Yes, I would like to meet the owner. I want to meet the owner of Dark Land."

"...I see." The bartender put the glass he was cleaning away. "I will go and ask about it, sir."

And he went back through the swinging flap doors, further into the establishment. Bowser sat back and sighed. He had wandered into some weird fantasy situation. It wasn't necessarily the bar itself, since he had been here before and things had been seemingly quite normal— no, it was the place and the time. He had the weirdest intuitive feeling that this could not have happened except at _this_ time _and _place.

Bowser turned in his seat and looked back. The two goombas that had been there before had left.

The older bartender returned.

"The owner would like to know who wishes to speak with him?"

Bowser thought for a moment. "An old Koopa Kingdom resident."

The older bartender nodded and returned through the doors.

Another five minutes passed before he returned out again, a troubled look on his face.

"The owner says he can meet with you in one week's time. Next Saturday."

"Next week. Seven days?" Bowser glanced at the back flap-doors. "I'm not here for a business deal, you know. I just wanted to meet… for a moment… the owner."

The older bartender spread his arms and smiled apologetically. "I am afraid the owner is away on a trip. He will only return very late next Friday night, and he will want to rest."

Bowser squinted. "Didn't you just talk to him?"

"Yes, sir. I spoke to him on the telephone."

"...Right." Bowser's eyes wandered over to a green phone that was hanging on the wall near a shelf stacked with bottles. He had the feeling that another detailed and essentially meaningless answer was related to the question of the phone. He wasn't going to ask.

The bartender nodded with understanding. "Ah. You're thinking about that telephone, aren't you, sir?"

"No," Bowser replied quickly.

"It's a matter of privacy, sir," The bartender continued on regardless, "The owner values his conversations as quite private, so if I need to speak directly with him, whether because of an inquiry, or for instructions on making a particularly difficult cocktail, I must use a certain private phone in the back of the establishment. As you may have guessed, the owner is an extraordinarily private fellow."

Yes, I can tell, Bowser thought. You and the other bartender make excellent security.

The bartender looked uncomfortable. "I am quite surprised he even agreed to meet with you... no offense, sir."

"None taken," Bowser said dryly.

"I hope you understand, sir."

"I do, yes. Okay. So I'm going to return in seven days. Next Saturday."

"If you want to meet the owner, yes, sir. I hope you realize it will be a rare occasion."

He's the owner of a pub, Bowser thought with a ludicrous sense. The owner of an underground pub.

But instead, he just said: "Yes, I understand."

And he stood up (he had already paid for his drink) and said some short goodbye, and left, back up the stairs— out into the crisp night. And, feeling remarkably short of breath, he focused on his breathing for some time.


	17. Chapter 17: スローモーション (Dark Land 2)

Chapter Seventeen: スローモーション

Another week passed. Somehow, Waluigi was still not found, though with the heightened police activity, he had also not gotten away with hurting anyone else.

By this time Bowser had gone into a police station and given a physical description of Waluigi. He had also convinced Wario to tell the police what he could as well— not too difficult a thing, since Wario's conscience was already weighed down.

Unfortunately, Wario could not provide much more information about Waluigi/Wallace than Bowser. Wario had not really interacted with his brother for many years, and could not even give a definite height for Waluigi. All of his information seemed to have an asterisk attached to it, that asterisk being that most of the information Wario gave was related to what he remembered from their childhood, back in the home village, over a decade ago.

Because Waluigi was going to be virtually an unknown personage, the police did not announce his identity to the public. It was also confirmed that no one who went by the name Waluigi or Wallace (with the requisite physical appearance) was working for anyone in the city. Only his physical description was spread— which was not too much more detailed than what had been spreading on the message boards already.

So Bowser contented himself that he had done all he could do. After all, he didn't know where Waluigi was. If anyone was going to find Waluigi, it was going to be a trained police force. And still, even if Waluigi was crazy enough to believe he himself was Luigi, it still wasn't really Bowser's responsibility to deal with him. Waluigi had been made by Wario and Luigi, and most recently spurred on in his madness by Luigi's suicide note. Bowser really, really had nothing to do with it.

With that in mind, he tried to focus on his writing.

Ah, what a paradox! It seemed… that when things were boring, there was plenty of time to write— but not much to write about. When things were happening, there was not as much time to write.

Well you see (Bowser said to himself), writing is for old people. It's for old people who have done a bunch of crap, and now they sit around and have nothing to do, so they have the material and they have the free time. You're not supposed to write as a younger person. It's unnatural.

God, I feel a hundred years old anyway.

So, what to write?

Actually, he did have a new idea. He wanted to try writing an epic poem… something like the Odyssey, or the Aeneid, or Paradise Lost. But more modernized, a modern fantasy, with the feelings of the present age. A great postmodern story… in verse.

But who the heck was he to write some epic story?

Well, after all, who the heck were most epic fantasy writers? All sorts of people tried their hand in writing epic fantasy or sci-fi, and many of them hadn't done much of interest in their lives. Maybe he wasn't being fair. Eh, whatever.

Though, maybe it was true that the more interesting your life, the more interesting your writing— even if you were writing something "childish" (a label made by a voice in his head) like genre fiction. The greatest fantasy story of all time (or, at least, the most influential), the Lord of the Rings, had been written by J.R.R. Tolkien— a person who had been in war and studied in-depth real world linguistics and mythology. No wonder his material was so original and intelligently constructed! He had witnessed the greatest dangers of the world and studied the power of mythology. Bowser was sure there was some quote somewhere about the best fantasy coming from mythology, but he couldn't place it…

What about George R.R. Martin, author of A Game of Thrones— possibly the "best" fantasy series since Lord of the Rings? Well, he didn't go to war, so that wasn't a prerequisite for writing interesting war-related material. What was most of his life? Teaching and writing. Well, after all, that wasn't so exciting, was it?

OK. So maybe if we just read and write enough, we'll eventually find our way to something excellent…? That was a nice thought. Even if you were trapped somewhere, as long as you kept snatching up words and throwing them back out, you too could write some "great" work.

(But neither Tolkien nor Martin nor Bowser were really "trapped". And maybe Martin's life was interesting after all, just in a more limited sense than Tolkien's. Or maybe it wasn't. Actually, Bowser didn't really know anything about these people. After scanning a couple of biographies, he had simply thrown together another theory. It too, like his other hastily created theories, would probably dissipate after a few months. Forgotten. How often thinking is useless.)

(And besides all of that, he had forgotten to even consider the lives of the poets connected to the actual works he had been originally thinking of, like Virgil and John Milton. Oops!)

But anyway, Bowser would try to write an epic story. They say write what you know, but despite not living a very interesting life (from his perspective), he found he had ideas after all for an epic tale. Where did these ideas come from? Pieces of this story and that, so it would seem— things he altogether forgot reading, flashes of images from movies. Nothing was perfectly original, except for the accidental combination of two old elements resulting in a stunning new form. No, the most original works were those that could collect ideas from the most disparate sources, and through repetitive knowledge of the laws of the art form, find the loopholes that allowed for the portrayal of new angles. New angles of that wobbly vision called "life". To paint a new picture on top of the underlying, unchanging _real_ existence that never changed, but was always _seen_ anew.

So another story, another poem, unraveled from the heart. Fantasy it may have been, and yet the conditions of sentient (human) nature it described were after all the same dance, the same theater stage with the same actors. The cloud atlas described by Mitchell. The collective unconscious…

Was Bowser even aware of all of this as he wrote? No, probably not. The creator shouldn't be, it's only distracting. And it's only a theory, right?

Maybe it's all wrong, and after all, we still don't know anything…

{Somewhere in this circle, it is written: Who is the audience? After all, if "we" are the actors…}

Bowser's reveries floated along…

...And then one day, it was Saturday again. A rainy Saturday. And Bowser was outside of the entrance to Dark Land, beside the stairs trailing down into the earth, and getting the faint sense (even if he had not thought the rest, in living memory) that he was standing on some stage, and in this underground bar, this cave, there was an old film reel being put in the machine, the lights turned off and the flickering lights (wait, what kind of theater is this?) clicking on…

He had some strange expectation about this encounter, one he couldn't articulate. The rain pattered his uncovered head. His stomach was turning, tickling a bit with nervousness.

When he had made his way down the steps, he was relieved to find that the older bartender was behind the counter. Sitting at the counter was a person wearing a raincoat, so large that it completely covered their body.

"Ah, you made it, sir." The bartender nodded.

Bowser couldn't keep from looking at the raincoat-person with a sense of expectation.

"Sir," The bartender, smiling, cleared his throat, "I have a very good guess what you are thinking, and if my guess is correct, I would have to say that you, in your guess, are incorrect."

The person in the raincoat was just finishing their drink. They pushed their glass back and stood up from the counter. Bowser was still staring at them with a strange and greedy expectation, with all sorts of weird ideas in his head: Is it really the bar owner? Is it Waluigi? (Though this person was too short to be the latter.)

"This way, sir," The bartender bowed slightly and extended his left hand out, towards the swinging flap doors in the back. "The owner is waiting for you."

The person in the raincoat was moving now, towards the stairway out, about to pass Bowser by.

Bowser stood still, feeling increasingly confused. He wasn't even sure why. Suddenly dawning on him was one fact, one fact alone. One fact blooming into consciousness. The fact was— that he didn't understand what was going on anymore.

Not just in this bar. The current situation was enough to trigger the sensation— the situation of the old Koopa Kingdom style bar and the two weird bartenders and this guest wearing a raincoat that completely covered them and the odd expectation of meeting the owner, the owner of this pub, who could only be contacted by special phone and traveled often…

This heap of events, getting heavier and heavier since Bowser had returned to the bar a week ago, seemed to break through the roof of his mind and come crashing down into his head, scattering debris and dust.

It was the realization...the conclusion...that Bowser didn't understand anything anymore. All of his thoughts for years had been useless, and nothing he had learned had really seemed to help him at all. And if he really believed that his thoughts were useless, that all of his words could not help him, then what was there? If there were no words there were no definitions, and if there were no definitions, then there was nothing. One meaningless event after another.

One attempt at happiness after another. One defeat after another. One victory… quickly flipped over, after another. And some defeats themselves flipping over to victory later. The events stack up and up, and time brings about changes...

Everything was constantly changing. This was obvious on paper. Everyone knows it: everything is changing. But Bowser, now, was beginning to grasp how this meant that, in one sense, nothing was real. He felt it most painfully in the way that despite everything he did, he never really seemed to get any happier. As he had concluded some time ago, no matter what he did, no matter what he believed, whether he focused on it, or ignored it, he could not actually find love… and let that idea be expanded to "real contentment" and "happiness in general".

Why, surely, thousands of things happened every day! Bowser took hundreds of actions. He thought millions of thoughts. Choosing to think nothing was still a choice. Choosing to try to take no action, to "BE" and "NOT DO" (and let life guide you, or the Dao, or zen or whatever fuck) hadn't changed things either. Nothing really changed anything. All choices were meaningless and useless. This was a new dimension of the "free will doesn't exist" idea. Determinism, atoms crashing into atoms since the beginning of time, was one aspect. Now, this one more directly sensible: that none of our choices actually make our lives better.

Could he say that by some evil miracle he had only made the wrong choices, only wrong choices, over and over again, for ten years or whatever?

But he _wanted _to make the _right choice_. If he wanted to make the right choice, and he always tried to, and yet still here he was making the wrong choices and still nothing ever changed, then he was trapped all the same because he was doing his best and it still made no difference.

And if all of this was true (and it seemed more and more that there was no other choice) then truly nothing mattered. But this was not simply nihilism. This was a new level of thought. Because in basic nihilism (as Bowser had understood it) the actions he took still made a difference in the world and for himself, there was just no real "system" or morality behind everything, to put it one way.

In this new nihilism, it was the so-shocking-it-felt-like-nothing idea that no matter what he did, he would feel just the same. And in that case, there was nothing to be done. There was nothing he could do to save himself.

It should have been obvious already. All he had to do was think about all of the people who, as long as they didn't have some kind of relationship problem, were generally happy without any effort at all. They didn't have to do anything. They had already been given prosperity. And it wasn't a relationship thing. In fact, for the most part, they were just given relationships as well. They didn't have to think about how this and that might work, or make dating into a math problem. They {ABRIDGED ver.} walked outside and collided with a body and 12 hours later were colliding repeatedly in a bed. They were giant particles. There was no real effort to it. There were no books to read, life just coasted along.

/Oh, you sourpuss misanthrope/ a voice said, /You're twisting it up. You're such a snob! An elitist. A "real jerk". Obviously, you're going to be alone forever, because of this attitude./

This was an attitude he had been trying to avoid. And yet as his thoughts tumbled away, and this helpless moment, of nothing mattering and nobody knowing anything and yet everything continuing to move all the same, these conclusions seemed more and more and more the only ones possible.

_行けない つらりつらりと行けない_

Perhaps he was giving a particularly pessimistic or emotionally charged view of it. And yet, stripped down, the ideas were essentially correct. People lived without effort, and they seemed to get what they wanted. More accurately, they lived _unconsciously_, so that they never really worried, or they never had to worry about any one problem for longer than a month, before they found it solved before their eyes. And if you asked them how things had worked out, what had they done to save themselves—? Oh so often, they could give no real answer, they could not explain. Because they hadn't done anything. Life had just helped them along.

"Sir? Are you OK?"

But some people "wake up". They become conscious. They begin to live the "examined life", as Plato put it. How fucking nice that sounded! How quaint! The "examined life". Let me examine how exactly infinite my problems are, how they cannot be solved, but because I am conscious now, I have to stare at this tornado of pain and frustration, that spins and spins without end! Yes. Surely, this is worth it.

(These were thoughts Bowser had already had for at least the last few months, but now they seemed to be fast materializing and made definitively conscious in the crash-bang-boom of the moment.)

So we need to return to an unconscious state, and then we won't be aware of our problems anymore. We'll just move along like animals, and we won't even be aware of fate determining whether we get what we want or not. No fear, no fear. We'll let our Id subsume us, as Freud would put it. We'll be like the flowers of the field, that do not work or spin, as Jesus put it. We must… we must lose desire, attain nirodha, as Buddha put it.

But Bowser had already thought about all of this, and though he could know all of this, none of it actually made a difference. With every step he took, he walked back into the very same place he had started.

"Sir?"

"Yes." Bowser heaved a great sigh and tried to find his breath again. "Yes, sorry. Sorry, I…"

He shook his head and smiled apologetically. "Could I have a quick drink?"


	18. Chapter 18: Gelatin Mode (The Ghost 1)

Chapter Eighteen: Gelatin Mode

Bowser had gone through the flap doors, and down a long hallway, dimly lit by light bulbs overhead. The bartender had told him to take the fourth door on the right. The hall actually stretched a long way back, with two wood doors on the right side of the wall, before the hall itself took a turn to the left. More doors lined the walls there. It was on the second in this turn of the hallway that Bowser figured was referred to.

Bowser knocked.

Silence.

He was a little nervous, but he thought now (with a bit of an internal chuckle) that he really had nothing to fear. Whether he had come to the wrong door, or he gave up and turned around, or even just burst through this door altogether without warning, nothing he did would make him any happier or unhappier. There was a weird sense of freedom to his latest auto-philosophizing, the conclusion that if nothing he did made any difference to anything, then fine, he could really do (or not do) whatever he wanted without a sense of guilt. He was powerless, and in a sense, had no responsibility. With little power comes little responsibility.

He was about to knock again when a dry voice inside said: "Come in."

Dry voice… vaguely papery… The sound made Bowser a little nervous.

As he opened the door into the room, the first thing he saw was a fireplace on the left side of the wall, lit and crackling. (Had there been a chimney above the bar, with smoke floating out? Yes… Bowser recalled it now…) The door opening further, two chairs were revealed in front of the fireplace, angled diagonally to face towards the fireplace and somewhat towards each other. The left chair appeared to be empty. Someone was in the right chair.

Bowser stepped in. What did he have to be nervous about? This wasn't supposed to be a big deal at all. Bowser had only intended to speak to the owner for a couple of minutes, at the front counter, and just ask a few questions about the owner's history with the Koopa Kingdom. This wasn't supposed to be… such a big deal… big fancy meeting… with a big fancy fireplace…

His thoughts were slowing down, because he was getting the sense that something was wrong. There was something _wrong_ about the person sitting by the fire. It wasn't a "dangerous" wrong, but a quirky, "Is this possible?" sort of wrong.

"Shut the door behind you." The voice sounded old.

Bowser obeyed without a word.

"And sit down." A limb gestured.

But it wasn't a limb with a hand. Or flesh. No…

Bowser's legs carried him over beside the empty chair, to look directly at the occupant of the other chair. His vision panned slowly, and strange color, the preposterous shape, entered his eyes. Floating. Round. Dead—

A ghost. A boo.

So ghosts are real, was Bowser's first thought. Boos are real.

It looked like it was from the old storybooks. Something like a bluish-white ball with two little stubby arms, two dark eyes, and a mouth. A sharp tooth stuck out of the right side of its mouth.

Unlike the storybooks, however, this ghost was not threatening. It looked a bit tired, a bit contemplative, a bit… kind.

"That's right. I'm a ghost."

Bowser stood still. Even as a "creature", "existing", looking at the boo felt like opening a very old book, with the crackling of pages and the old smell, and the sense of the dead as in a painting— not a fearful monster.

"This doesn't surprise you."

Bowser shook his head. "Not really."

If he'd thought every thought there was, over and over, was there anything that could be surprising? If he'd read enough books and seen enough movies, was there an idea that could really surprise him?

If he was forever depressed, was there any real feeling—besides that of true danger—that could catch him off guard?

(Upon reconsideration, later, he could still say "yes" to that last question. In this moment, he would say "No, and the proof is that encountering an actual ghost does not surprise me.")

The boo materialized a pipe from somewhere. "Well, sit then." From out of the air, little shreds of tobacco or some other substance flitted down into the open top of the pipe.

It was a this point that Bowser began to wonder if he was just hallucinating all of this. (That was the most obvious answer, really.)

Then the fear that he was going crazy entered his mind, but dissolved fairly quickly as his newfound, newly strengthened sense of nihilism walked in, and asked simply: What difference does it make?

"Well," Bowser sat, "Alright."

"Hm." The boo floated up and down, lightly, smoking its pipe.

Bowser watched for a moment. "You can still do that when you're dead, huh?"

The boo blew a cloud of smoke out. "Only in certain circumstances."

Bowser waited for the boo to continue.

Smoke floated upward. "It's a matter of if you're a boo or not. Most people who die do not become boos. They cannot smoke a pipe. Also, if you're a boo, but you do not like smoking (you truly hate it), you cannot smoke a pipe."

This was said completely seriously, though the phrase sounded like a joke.

"Just because you hate doing something doesn't mean you can't do it." Bowser leaned back in the chair. It was rather comfortable. "You _probably won't_ do it. But you can force yourself."

The boo exhaled. "Boos are more closely aligned with will. They will do only what is natural. Anything that they would hate, they will not do. It can never even be a possibility to them. It is the same as with living creatures, but more obvious."

"What do you mean the same with living creatures?"

"No one does anything they truly hate. Not you, either. After all, you still 'chose' to do whatever it is. Whatever you didn't do is what you truly hated, even if, as you began to partake in the choice you made, you believed that you were in an awful situation, and you wished things were different. You knew beforehand what the worse road was, and you took the better— even if it still hurt."

Bowser grinned a little. The sight of the boo smoking the pipe and philosophizing was rather funny.

"You're not listening." The boo commented. "Not really. You're thinking about how funny I look, and you're not fully absorbing my words."

Bowser blushed a little. The boo was right. But the absurdity of the situation, and his nihilistic courage (shall we call it that?) pushed him on, and he simply shrugged. "What difference does my 'absorbing' make to you?"

"I've been watching you for some time now." The boo was looking into the fire. "Since you first came to Dark Land three months ago, I've been watching your progress closely. I knew you would want to meet me at some point. And, you finally asked a week ago."

Now Bowser was caught off guard. "You've been watching me?" Have I been haunted by a ghost?

"Mostly out in the streets. When you talk with your friends. When you go to those parties." The boo looked thoughtful.

"Yes? And why?"

The boo blew out a trail of smoke. "You reminded me of someone I knew a long time ago. When I was alive. This was many years ago now. I have wandered as a boo for about one hundred years, and for most of that time out in the wilderness. I only recently, in the last ten years, made arrangements to acquire my own business, and return to the transactions of the living world. In these ten years, I have watched a number of people who have come into this pub, this Dark Land, and you are the one that most caught my eye."

Bowser thought about this for a moment.

"So. You came to live in a city, in Sarasaland. You somehow acquired a business, with money. Hired at least a couple of real people to work with you. Then you hid out in this bar, watching whoever came in. You watched anyone who came into this bar dedicated to the Koopa Kingdom…" Bowser trailed off. He had been planning to make some argument about how bizarre the situation was, but he still couldn't put the full situation in words.

"I lived in the Koopa Kingdom when I was alive." The boo smiled a little. "Yes… I spent the first thirty years of my life there. But something tremendous happened— when I was about thirty years old. I called that something "terrible" for most of my living life, but near the end I came to see it more as inevitable. That it had to happen… It was an event of tremendous importance."

Bowser was reminded of the mysterious "happening" that had happened to the younger bartender.

"After that event, I left the Koopa Kingdom and traveled much of the world. I was on a mission. I traveled through the Sarasaland of old multiple times during my journeys, and it was here too that I finally died, far from my homeland. When I had passed, and found that I was a boo, it was to the Koopa Kingdom I returned firstly, though only to wander the forests and mountains. After many years of this, my heart quenched with wandering the place of my life, my will desired to return to the place of my death."

Sarasaland, Bowser mused.

(He still wasn't sure if he had already lost his mind or not.)

"So I returned to Sarasaland, and set up a bar. A place where travelers come. And sometimes, where they tell stories. Because I wanted to remember my homeland. And listen to find out if any miracles happened there."

Miracles?- Bowser wanted to ask, but he was starting to get the sense of the situation. It was better to just listen, and let the boo's words unwind naturally.

But the boo asked him at this point: "Would you like a drink?"


	19. Chapter 19: Dark Fantasy (The Ghost 2)

Chapter Nineteen: Dark Fantasy

Bowser said yes (of course). The drink was something fancy looking in a green kettle, but Bowser didn't really pay attention. He was more interested in the boo's talking, as the boo continued speaking as he floated around and poured drinks.

"Miracles can start as very small things. Very strange, but… subtle enough, unknown enough, that they are not passed around as great news, but only passed around with low voices. In places like bars, when people have had two or three drinks, and that fearful Thing, that confusing, not easily understandable, and so perhaps somewhat forgotten Happening… has a better chance of spilling out, so-to-speak."

The boo poured for himself and Bowser.

"Cheers," The boo suggested, raising his glass out to Bowser.

Bowser tapped his own short glass to the boo's. "Cheers," He said distantly. He brought the drink back to his mouth, but paused to watch the boo drink, the liquid pouring into the large mouth, and…

Well, it was gone somewhere.

Bowser drank.

"Boos can drink, yes. Even though we are dead, we are still tangible, feeling, to the world. Material. We have lost proper spiritual passage in favor of an odd, continued existence in this world."

"Did you choose it?" Bowser asked, already forgetting his decision to just let the boo speak.

"Choose what? To be a boo?" The boo looked into the fire. "I suppose I must have. But I don't remember it. That's part of the curse. I remember most of my living life, but not the moment, or the method, by which I chose to become a boo after death. Even more disturbingly, I cannot remember the reasons why I chose this."

"Is it lonely?" Bowser leaned forward. Maybe the green drink was spurring him on. "What's so bad about being a boo?"

"Loneliness is one thing." The boo took a poker and began poking it in the fireplace, breaking wood into coals. "Maybe worse is uncertainty, and the sense of being outside the proper stream of existence. A ghost, a boo, is not quite natural. I had to perform some arcane ritual, I am sure, to ensure I would become like this after death. Once I woke up after my death, I had forgotten my purpose, and so I became stuck. Stuck not knowing what I hoped to accomplish as a ghost, and without knowing how to escape it."

Bowser stared into the fire.

"Have you heard the story about the boy who met God and asked for the world?"

Bowser shivered. "What? Story about… the boy who met God?" He considered. "No… I guess there's more than a few though. I've never heard one about a boy asking for the world, though."

The boo was staring deep into the fire.

* * *

"A long time ago, many many years ago… thousands… there was a time when God walked the earth. The sentient creatures knew of God. They could even meet God. There were places at the edge of the world, on the tops of mountains and stretches of harsh desert, when one would be more likely to meet Him. Because God was finishing his work on the world. He was finishing the farthest edges of the map, and when He was done, He would leave this world.

There was a young man, a boy, hungry for adventure. He was hungry for the world. He knew very little, as he hailed from a small village, and spent his childhood working on his family's farm. His family was very poor.

But the boy had seen other people passing through from the cities outside and from other far away places, and he learned from them about the wonders of the wider world. And he heard stories of God, God the creator and all-powerful, wandering the edges of the world. And so the boy decided to set out, and find God, and ask a wish of Him."

Yes, because it was said that if you met God, you could ask for anything you desired."

Bowser shivered.

"So the boy set out. He crossed rivers, and forests, and managed to stow aboard a ship crossing the ocean, and finally, he reached a great desert. And it was here he thought to find God.

By some luck, good or ill, he wandered into the desert, and had not gone far, not more than a half day, before he found God.

The boy was astounded to meet God, but satisfied that his journey would be rewarded.

'God', the boy entreated, 'I heard you will grant any prayers that are asked of you. I have a great prayer.'

And the boy was about to ask to become king of the world— but his tongue faltered.

Only now he wondered about all the others who had met God, who surely had asked to become kings themselves. He remembered the kings and queens he had heard stories of, people who had ruled for some years, short or long, but had often been executed in bloody rebellions, or who had died in old age, and had had their kingdoms split apart by their heirs in bloody wars.

To ask to be a king was a trick, the boy decided.

So he asked for what he thought was better:

'God, I want to experience all the greatest things of this life! I want to experience the greatest pleasures, the most noble victories, the most astounding secrets! I want all that is greatest in this life!'

Here was a much better wish, the boy imagined.

God considered this. God was willing to grant the wishes and prayers of his children who managed to find him. But he exacted a law in exchange, a law necessary to his perfectly balanced world: that every wish had an equal cost in price. In order to ensure the balance of this existence, every action had to be balanced by an opposite action.

'I can grant your prayer,' God replied, 'But there is a cost in exchange. If you would experience all of the greatest pleasures of this world, you will also have to experience all of the worst pains. Physical agonies. The most wretched sights of horror. The deepest sadnesses. All that is most horrible, that can happen to a man. The very worst hells, before the greatest heavens.'

The boy was frightened. But he had come so far, and the idea of the greatest happiness lured him on.

And he thought, and asked: Could the pain come first, and then the happiness? For life, continued along from great pain into increasingly great happiness, would surely be better than the alternative.

'That can be granted,' God assented, 'From the greatest pains, you will ascend increasingly into the greatest good and happiness. From your position it will always appear impossibly steep, vertical. But the ascent is certain.'

The boy agreed to this. God asked a final time if the deal be struck.

'After this deal is struck, it cannot be undone. No matter how you may scream and cry, I will not save you. No matter how you pray and beg, scratching in the darkness, I will do nothing. In time, you will not even remember making this deal.'

The boy, who could not imagine the greatest good, and certainly not the greatest bad, agreed. The worst pain he imagined as the emaciating of the body by a farm tool. In the greatest good, he imagined diverse sexual pleasures.

He made the agreement with God. He made the agreement quickly— he made the leap, before his fears could stop him.

* * *

The boo stopped talking.

The fire crackled. Bowser was gripped not just with tension, but a state bordering on terror.

"And then—?!"

"That is how the story ends."

Bowser wanted to scream.

"If it's true," The boo pondered, "I wonder if the boy is still alive. Would the greatest good include living in unending bliss? But in that case, thinking about time, would the worst pain include unending pain? If the boy made his prayer thousands of years ago, has he finished his suffering yet? Is he living as a rich king now? Or has he only attained the status of a worm? How many different pains and pleasures exist in the universe?"

"I hate that story," Bowser declared. "I hate that. Why did you tell me that?"

"It's only a legend. I thought you might find it interesting." The boo floated up from his seat. "Have another drink?"

"Yes." Bowser replied flatly.

The boo poured from the same green kettle as from before, one cup for himself, one for Bowser.

"Cheers."

"Huh, cheers."

Clink.

"Actually," The boo said, after finishing the drink, "There's another story I wanted to tell you."

Bowser sighed. "Is it a happier story?"

The boo wore a real smile for the first time since Bowser had entered the room. "Yes. I think so. And it's definitely true. It is a story of the Koopa Kingdom, a long time ago. I think this is the story you came here for, actually. The story of who I am, and what my relation is to the Koopa Kingdom."

Bowser sighed again, now in relief. "Okay. Yes. I'm very interested."

The boo nodded. "Yes, I thought so. Listen."


	20. Chapter 20: GW (The Ghost's Story 1)

Chapter Twenty: God's Whisper

"I was born about two hundred and fifty years ago, in the Koopa Kingdom of old. Back then, the kingdom was led by a different royal family, a different dynasty, than the one that was ruling a few years ago and ended with Bowser Koopa. This family was ruthless for power, and its members fought first at the dinner table, then out in the fields. They stabbed forks into their dinners, and then before too long, were sending out legions of soldiers to kill each other. That is to say, a civil war broke out.

The war ended very shortly after I was born. I was fortunate in that my mother survived the fires that engulfed our village, but many other families were not so fortunate. Before the village was destroyed, several of the people prepared a plan to protect the children, even if the armies of the warring royal family should come and ruin everything. The plan was successful, so many children survived— but they were left orphans.

When the underground passage we hid in was opened, we children emerged to find a newly desolated world. Again, I was very fortunate. I wandered not too far out before my mother, who had found miraculous shelter in a brush of trees, embraced me. Most of the children found their mother and father gone.

The war ended shortly afterwards… Excuse me if these thoughts seem jumbled. Though I have thought over my memories for many years, I have not told them to anyone else for a very long time…

So the war was over, and the danger was largely past. The victorious brother of the royal family settled into place on their throne. For us, little became better for us— we mostly felt the loss of our neighbors and destruction of several surrounding fields.

And yet for some of us, this was the beginning of something else that would direct the rest of our lives…

It started in… and yes, was centered in… the appearance of a single orphan, an infant no one recognized. Amongst us children found huddling in the hidden pit, uncovered after the fires had died down, was a baby boy held close by a very young girl— herself perhaps two years of age. A young girl, who could not even speak, who could barely walk, clutching an even younger child, a very little baby. They shivered together.

The girl was recognized— her parents had both perished. But the boy she held… no, no one knew. There were not so many families in our village, so there should have been little mystery. The older children, who could speak, could not remember where that baby came from, or if the girl even entered the pit with the boy.

So. The children were divided out among the women still alive. The girl… ah, her name, was Merla… she, in her wordless childish wisdom, stayed closely with the boy who had ended up in her arms, and would not be separated from him. So it was.

No one thought much of all this. There was so much chaos following the war, including the work of rebuilding the village, repairing the surrounding fields, and taking care of the children. It was easy enough to see the lost boy as, perhaps, a child that had been brought in from outside the village somehow. And when Merla was able to speak, was able to communicate a little, she was able to explain the faded memory of a woman in red handing down the baby to Merla, asking her to protect the child…

It doesn't matter.

When the boy— Ah, his name was Rûm. An accented R-u-m that sounds like room—was about twelve, or thirteen, he discovered he had a strange ability. A miracle. He, though he was physically a koopa in appearance, had the ability to transform. He could make himself look like any person he met… or any animal… yes. With a puff of smoke, he would change. He could become any living shape he desired.

He knew this was a dangerous secret, and tried to keep it hidden. But he was so eager to use this power, child that he was, that he was discovered very quickly. And you can imagine the reactions of the other villagers, hundreds of years ago.

Witchcraft! Wizardry! Evil magic! Impossible… against God…

Rûm was made to flee. He had no choice but to run away from our little village, when he was only thirteen. I knew him, and felt somewhat sorry. We were barely acquaintances then… Though our village was small, we were a quiet, stoic people…

But, Rûm fled, alone. He fled into the vast mountains and forests of the kingdom, far more numerous and unconquered centuries ago than now.

He was gone for fourteen years.

When he returned, he was utterly different.

He claimed he had met God, the almighty God. And he had been given sacred instructions… to save the world.

Yes, you've heard this story before. A person claims to be a messiah, claims to have received special instructions from God, or to have found new, profound meaning in an old text…

But Rûm was ours. He came from our village, and returned speaking in marvelous riddles. Gone ten years, we hardly recognized him when he returned— adorned with a gray traveller's cape and terribly deep eyes… eyes that had seen God and an ocean of devils. He had seen, he said, straight through the world, into the vortex that lay beneath. There the spirits of the world lie, spinning and spinning, moving in diverse and abstract manners, alive in their own way.

But that was later. At first he only returned to preach. There was some power in his speech, a line of thought that brought us to listen. Our town was bigger then: we had become a minor trading center, and thus had taken on a larger population…

And soon enough, Rûm performed miracles. They were the same miracles that had cast him out as a child, but now as an adult, he could wield and reveal them carefully, and cause the transformation of material in a way that was not outright heretical. Later on, when his miracles became greater and greater, and he could not allow people to see the transmutation of his self into various elements, he began to wear a gray sheet over his body, something like a ghost. He would transform beneath the sheet, and in the flash of a chant, create water, earth, fire, air…

Only I and a few others of our home village knew of Rûm's transforming abilities— as the source of his miracles. When Rûm's pilgrimages began, and more villages began to follow his word (for there were so many people back then who thirsted for the word, A word) Rûm was known as a holy man, a savior of some sort, who would bring about a golden age for the Koopa Kingdom. A few of us, the most dedicated (myself included), became disciples. It was we who were taught the deeper secrets, the deeper nature of Rûm's revelations— still so difficult, still so misunderstood.

Some of us remembered his transforming powers had come about before he had gone out into the wilderness and found his revelations. But =Rûm declared that he had those powers only because he had been visited in infancy by an agent of the Lord— a prescient angel. His early abilities were a sign of the spiritual understandings he would receive directly from God. It all tied together— the early whisperings lead to the early abilities, the early abilities lead to the later whisperings, and the later whisperings lead to later abilities.

It is the old idea of the chicken and the egg. The original philosophical point, perhaps, is that there is neither a first chicken nor first egg to begin the cycle, their existence inherently wrapped up in each other, as are so many processes of life. How does a fight start? Someone punches, because someone else gives insult, the insult is prompted by an angry look... tension upon slight tension, like delicate layers of a cake, wrapped in-between each other, the origin of the conflict lost in subtleties… the same, Rûm said, was the nature of his encounters with God.

He did not speak like this. These are my descriptions, after years of ponderance, conveyed to you. Rûm, like most of the great messiahs, spoke simply but enigmatically (enigmatic only in our own misunderstandings). _You_ prefer complexity… you prefer explanation, after the modern standard of the pursuit of scientific truth, where logic connects to logic. That kind of route will not hold with the common people, who can hear their hearts quite well, but do not hold council as well with their minds. A messiah must pull truth directly from the heart, so that all can, even if they cannot understand him, feel the truth and intuitive power of his words.

Rûm, trekking through the smaller, isolated provinces of the old Koopa Kingdom, built up quite a following. These were villages still devastated after the civil war, full of people feeling antagonistic towards the old Churches in the cities that had no interest in helping them— were too busy gathering power and gaining favor with the king in power. Rûm, speaking a clear spiritual message again, cutting straight through pomp and the intricate, seemingly meaningless rituals of the old Churches, was inspirational.

Many of us disciples lived to follow Rûm— he was what seemed to be the truth incarnate. Some of the others had political ambitions, too, and hopes that Rum's quest for peace... would be the beginning of a revolution.

What was Rûm aiming for precisely? Beyond his spirituality, his journeys across our kingdom… What was it all leading to?

We would never find out, of course. If the salvation of the world was his true end… Well, as you can see, that did not come about.

There were two developments that ended our pilgrimage. One was the growing attention of the powerful Churches, especially those in the kingdom capital. Rûm, claiming himself as… at least, a prophet… was a heresy.

The other development was Devada."


	21. Chapter 21: TRL (The Ghost's Story 2)

Chapter Twenty-One: Tabula Rasa — Ludus

"Devada was one of Rûm's other disciples, one that we others imagined as the most spiritually acute— farthest along the path Rûm was leading us along. He was not from our home village, but from one of the great cities, near the capital itself. His ability… whatever precisely it was, spiritual or imitative… was great.

The beginning of the end came one day, when all of Rûm's followers had camped in a certain forest.

Devada, who had been gone on a journey for several days, suddenly appeared among us other disciples. He was wearing a gray cape similar to the one that Rûm so often wore. With a flash and a strike of the arm he transformed himself into a spinning whirlpool of water, crackling and flashing lightning within violent cyclic waves.

'I, too, can transform!' Devada declared, 'I can see straight through the world, into the ocean below! I have seen all of Rûm's revelations, and farther still! I have seen the ocean beneath the ocean… and the eighty-eight oceans below that!'

That was nonsense, but Devada's words astounded Rûm's simpler followers, and his ability to physically transform astounded everyone. There had to be some truth to his words, if he could make himself into water, or perform other miracles besides... he soon proved himself capable of harnessing the wind, and breathing fire.

That last act, of breathing fire, was terribly dangerous, for it was well known that only kingdom royalty had the ability to breathe fire— Devada's act of breathing fire, something Rûm had avoided, was an outright statement against the royal family.

In confusion the news of the fire breathing reached the capital. It was said the false prophet Rûm was breathing fire as proof to his claim to the kingdom throne. Devada himself was still an unknown.

The Churches began to consider the rumors excuse to send an army out to capture Rûm, and in case of resistance, to cause massacre. They began to demand the king for permission.

Rûm, meanwhile, had said nothing about Devada. Devada himself went all around, continually practicing acts of transformation and boasting of his superiority to Rûm. Finally, Devada declared that he was going to form his own following— that all who would should follow him.

Rûm's followers, myself included, begged Rûm that he arise from his tent and stop Devada. Preach truly, and show that Devada was some kind of fraud.

But now Rûm, who so far had been calm, seemed to have some dark aspect come over him. He said Devada and those who followed him could leave— If, after all this time, they still did not understand his, Rûm's, words. If they would leave and follow someone else… then they could do so.

For as I saw it, Rûm preached the truth and the way to life… but he would not force people to listen.

At the same time that we spoke to Rûm, Devada's followers were speaking to him, demanding that he truly prove his superiority to Rûm— that he "defeat" him. They were fools and troublemakers: fools who wanted a magic show, who did not understand the spiritual road in the least, and troublemakers who wanted a revolution, who wanted to see who of Rûm and Devada was more powerful, and more likely to take on the Churches and the royal family.

Devada was brash… and though he did have some spiritual insight, and had somehow claimed the transformational powers that only the prophet had wielded before… he now seemed possessed by some miserable devil. Rousted by his followers, he turned away from his preparations to travel, and headed straight for Rûm's tent. He shouted for Rum— the "coward", he said, wretched fool— to emerge, and "face" him.

Devada called for three minutes before Rûm emerged, wearing the gray sheet over his head. He was quiet, and his previous darkness seemed to be gone.

'Ha, there you are!' Devada shouted. 'Hiding under your bedsheet! What are you afraid of?'

Rûm turned to the circle of followers who had crowded around them. These were only the most serious followers— the lay follower villagers who had come along on Rûm's journeys were staying in a nearby village.

Turning around and round slowly, looking at us all, Rûm asked gravely: 'Is this what you want?'

Devada's followers readily agreed. Us of Rûm's more loyal followers were silent, but in our hearts… Yes, in our hearts, we wanted to see. We wanted to see the foul Devada struck down… we wanted to see Rûm perform a greater miracle than any before…

So even if we said nothing, some of us nodded, very slightly. And even… through Rum's sheer intuitive powers, his deeper abilities granted by God, he could see right into our hearts, and see what many of us wanted: we wanted a fight. We wanted conflict. We still hungered for a demonstration of Power, the most fundamental of all material desires, perhaps that very clash and strife that we seek to escape in finally finding accordance with God.

Rûm was disappointed. But he saw the direction all of us were looking, and it was no longer down the path.

Rûm realized the message had been lost, and in that instant, something changed in him.

'Then,' Rûm said, 'Let it be'.

His cape rippled silently and he transformed into a great pillar of fire, scorching hot and bright.

The followers fell back. Devada took a step back as well, but then grinned and laughed. Now he transformed— into his favorite cyclone of water.

Now Rûm became a great tree, roots digging firm into the earth, branches abound with shining golden fruit. And Devada became a great snake, an awful form none had seen before, wrapping itself around the tree.

And Rûm became, bursting, flying out of the tree which was tossed up in flames, a fiery bird. A phoenix— legendary, impossible.

And Devada attempted to become the wind, to throw the phoenix to the ground, but the phoenix became a mountain peak, and the wind blew futilely against it—

We disciples were tossed back, and struggled to see through the brilliant flashes of magic and miracles…

And Devada, exhausted, was falling back into his ordinary mortal form, kneeling on the ground, face shining with sweat and determination.

'I will become pure energy!' Devada groaned, 'And nothing is greater than that. Give... up.'

But the mountain peak said nothing.

Devada dragged himself to his feet, and began concentrating. His form was slowly enveloped by flame, and soon he was entirely on fire… standing in meditative concentration, but with the exact opposite of bliss on his face.

'I can g… go farther!' Devada declared, 'Watch… watch…'

'You, Devada, will never reach the end,' Rum's voice reached out from his mound of earth, 'You lost the path a long time ago. Behold… the end.'

And like a body emerging from its grave, a form began to break free from the earth. Devada was frozen… ironically frozen in his flame, watching the emergence of the four lights.

I can describe it no better… four lights, piercingly bright beyond the sun, like holes cut into space. Arranged in a diamond pattern, pointing straight upward. They rose in the air, and yet moved not at all— as the true reality.

Devada's flame was like the trembling of a dull eye in comparison.

'Follow,' the lights said, and in a movement they became three, as a triangle.

Then again, higher, they combined and became two.

And then, they combined again— and everyone became blind, and Devada cried out in a great wailing.

I don't know how much time passed after that… but gradually, our visions returned. When we were able to see again, we discovered Devada unconscious but alive on the ground… and Rûm gone. Utterly, irretrievably gone. Vanished— never seen again.

We disciples struggled to understand what had happened, and what we would do next… All we were certain of was in this forest, in this place, the greatest of all miracles had happened. And we now stood on what was essentially holy ground.

It was not more than a day later that soldiers from the capital came to take Rûm before the judgment of the Churches. When it was told that Rûm had disappeared, the soldiers became angry, and threatened violence.

Devada had awoken by this time, and something had utterly changed in him. Weak but certain, he came before the soldiers and declared himself as Rûm— and he created a flame from the air as 'proof'.

In one sense it seems that Devada did this to cement his fame… but I believe he did it to save the lives of the other followers. The soldiers accepted his claim as Rûm, and took him away with them.

We followers, left behind in the place of Rûm's miracle… decided to build a church. To continue Rûm's teachings, and to make memorial of this place where the greatest of all miracles had happened. Deep in the forest, away from society… where the Churches would not immediately destroy it. We prayed and worked for a day that Rûm's words could be spread all over our kingdom and beyond. I, myself… I left the Koopa Kingdom, and traveled far and wide to try spread our message.

That is why I came here, to Sarasaland so long ago… back when it was known as the Sarasan Empire, and was a terribly foul place. Yes, but then… all the world seemed so full of grief then. However you may feel now… understand you live in a far safer world.

Yes, we built our church, and we sent out our messengers, but in the end… our small faith was forgotten. Rûm only spoke for a few years, and our church survived for perhaps only a hundred. As the earth rises and covers up the depths that valleys millenia later reveal, our story was lost too…"


	22. Chapter 22: WHaMotP (The Ghost 3)

Chapter Twenty-Two: We Have a Map of the Piano

Bowser sighed. He was a bit overwhelmed by it all…: what to believe and not believe. But one question came to the forefront of his thoughts, maybe the most 'important' one of all:

"What did Rûm actually teach? You didn't say anything about what he actually said… What he preached."

Then Bowser also thought: Was that really supposed to be a 'happy' story?

"Hmm." The boo paused. "I don't think Rûm's teachings would help you… and certainly not through me. Besides, I'm sure you've already heard versions of what he might have taught. You have a fondness for religion… you've read about different teachings."

"Fondness for religions!" Bowser huffed. "I have an interest. I don't… ehh."

"I would not attempt to give one of Rûm's sermons… even as far as I can remember them. It has been a long time." The boo smiled. "And I was never a good preacher. My work in Sarasan never left much of an impression."

And then…

"And what about being happy? It didn't seem like a happy story to me."

The boo blinked. Blinked one or two times...

"Yes. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps it's my nostalgia that colors my memories. That was the best part of my life, perhaps. When I followed Rûm, I felt like I had full purpose in my life… and that I was very close to God's will. Now, as a boo, I am very much tied to will, but I am less certain about God…"

"Really? But you're, eh, floating proof there's life after death."

"It's quite possible to have life after death without God. After all, the world is already quite an impressive thing… that may all exist without a creator, right? What more is life after death— the revelation simply that mortals were wrong about death being the end? The system simply perpetuates further than some believed."

"And you say," (Bowser was struggling strangely under the weight of the story, which was bursting with mystery, and may not have been true anyway) "You have less faith in God now?"

"I had faith in God as Rûm taught. I spent my life preaching… or trying to preach, his word. But after I died, and woke again as a boo, I found that the church had crumbled, and Rûm's word had been lost. Furthermore, I discovered that there had been others who had already said very similar things to what he had said. His message seemed less powerful… in that it could be found repeated in many cultures, in many different time periods, and seemed to reflect the basis of deep sentient morality rather than the personal word of God."

Bowser sighed. "Shouldn't the universality of the message make it even more likely to be… be legitimate?"

"You _are_ fond of religion." The boo added more tobacco (or whatever) to his pipe. "Or fond of Jung, anyway. I am not arguing against the miracle and mystery of the universe… simply the idea of one creator managing everything. I have no doubt that Rûm did something extraordinarily powerful in the moment of his disappearance… but it does not prove that God exists."

Bowser was about to say something else, but he caught himself— what was he arguing for? He didn't really believe in God either. Life wouldn't be so random and unfulfilling if there was a God… or a God worth believing in, anyway.

Again, there was something else within him that wanted to believe in God. But Bowser himself believed now in just about nothing. (And he had to snort terribly, later, when he realized these thoughts sounded like the beginning of some awful tract.)

"So you say all that really happened, huh?"

"Yes."

"This guy could actually transform?"

"Yes." The boo gave him a somewhat humorous look. "Does that seem impossible to you?"

Bowser was struck by a violent shiver.

The boo was smiling a little again. "Something happened to you, didn't it?"

Bowser felt cold. "What? You…"

"I'm guessing. I'm only guessing." The boo turned back to the fire. "But I've become very good at guessing. You look like you, yourself, are about to become a ghost. You have a secret you've been keeping, and it's been weighing you down. Now, as we near the revealing, you feel a little closer to death, perhaps."

"What are you talking about?"

"I am sure… that you encountered a miracle. I think… you too transformed."

Bowser's head hurt.

"And where," The boo continued, "I ask, did this happen?"

Bowser felt he was cracking a little. "Where what happened?"

"You're still awkward in that body— slightly, like it is one you are used to, but not the one you were born with. In your conversations, your past is eternally vague. You make references to... odd things."

"Ha!" Bowser scratched at the armrest. "I make odd references! That's a great one. Yeah, that's proof that I was transformed! Ha. Ha ha ha…"

"Yes…" The boo drew out a cloud of smoke. "So there it is. You did not transform. You _were_ transform_ed_. Someone else, or something else… caused the change in you. A miracle. A new, unheard of miracle."

Bowser was going to deny it, he wanted to deny it (he wasn't even sure why), but then that one part of himself caught up, the part that said: "If you never lie… your soul will be clearer. Your spirit can float a little higher."

So Bowser said nothing.

"Where did this happen? The Koopa Kingdom?" The boo continued. "A place deep in the woods. Decrepit… forgotten… ruins…"

—Holding breath—

"A church, perhaps?"

Bowser's face paled.

"I can see it on your face," The boo puffed thoughtfully, "And I don't intend to interrogate. I only wanted to know about that. I don't care about finding out who you really are… I think that is what you are scared of most of all. But. A miracle… in our old church. Again…"

The boo drifted off into silence.

"You said…" Bowser sought.

The boo looked over.

"You said I reminded you of an old friend of yours." Bowser's throat was dry. "Who was that?"

"Oh…" The boo nodded. "Yes. You… reminded me of Devada."

Bowser seized up. "Why?"

"Your spirits feel similar. Your auras. I can't say your actions match one another's… but something very hard to describe… does feel similar. Perhaps, beneath everything, some line of fate."

"Yeah?" Bowser trembled. "You wanna say I'm a reincarnation of him or something?"

"Hu! What a remarkable conclusion." The boo puffed. "No."

"Then what?" Bowser was shaking. "What is that supposed to mean? I'm the bad guy? Ha ha ha…"

"You're getting awfully worked up about this." The boo made an airy sound, maybe a kind of sigh.

There was a flicker of movement, and the boo's pipe vanished.

"I think… I have one more story for you."

"What!" Bowser gritted his teeth. "Another story! You're a real storyteller, huh?"

"Hmm… a storyteller… Hmm… Yes, after all… maybe…"

"Is this a story about Devada? Or me?"

The boo turned from side to side, like he was thinking. But he didn't answer the question.

* * *

"This is a very short story.

There are only two characters: Mother and Baby. Mother is somewhat sad. Depressed, even. She often gets into dark moods. Mother loves Baby, but she still falls into dark moods— whether she wants to or not.

Baby is new to the world. Baby knows very little… almost nothing… The only thing Baby knows for sure is the existence of Mother. Baby relies on Mother for food and protection. Without Mother, Baby would be helpless and quickly dead. So Baby looks to Mother for everything.

Mother falls into dark moods often. And whether she wants to or is even aware of it, she harms Baby a little. Even just her negative energy, taking out anger on Baby, negative influences— very subtle things can harm Baby. And if Mother ever actually hurt Baby on purpose… well… that would be truly unfortunate.

Baby knows nothing except Mother. If Mother, by accident or purpose, makes Baby feel fear or pain… Baby begins to struggle. Baby asks itself, unconsciously, a key question. It is one of the most profound questions of existence, of Baby's own existence. And there seem to be only two answers possible.

The Question: Why do I suffer?

The first answer is that Baby suffers for no reason. Helpless, lying in a crib, Baby has no choice but to suffer, apparently at random. Whatever Baby does, they will be forced to suffer sooner or later. The world is meaningless.

(Or even worse, far worse: Mother is bad. She causes pain by accident or on purpose.)

The second answer… is that Baby is bad. That if there must be a reason for this pain, and a way to "solve" it… then Baby feels pain because Baby is bad. Mother is punishing Baby. If only Baby was good, better… if only Baby, lying in its crib, was not bad. Then maybe, someday… Baby would not be hurt anymore.

There are the choices— at least for helpless, simple Baby.

But they are not really choices. The first choice is unbearable— mentally unbearable. The idea that Baby is powerless to pain and suffering is impossible to bear. Baby's mind, if not its physiological self, will not allow it to make that first conclusion— it would render life impossible, to conclude that Baby was truly helpless, and that it had no choice or ability.

So then, there is the second choice, and it is not truly the second choice, but the only possible solution to the problem: Baby is bad. Baby is bad, and from that point on, Baby can accept that role of "bad" (whether or not Baby is actually capable of real "evil") and "understand" why bad things must happen to it… Or, constantly seek to be morally better, to stop being "bad", to finally be "good"— and earn an end to pain.

Baby must believe itself to be bad."


	23. Chapter 23: Karma Police (The Ghost 4)

Chapter Twenty-Three: Karma Police

"Great," Bowser rested his face in his hands, "I hate that story too."

"You hate it because it feels bad to hear?"

"Mmm…" Now Bowser rubbed his head with one hand. "...Yes…"

Admitting that made him feel stupid for some reason. At this point he'd like to say he hated a story (or any piece of "art") for its objective value— a failure to be beautiful, or having faulty construction. To hate a story because it makes you feel bad was not really a reason to hate the thing, at least in Bowser's opinion… some of the best stories or works of art were designed to make you feel bad, really. Painful works increased one's empathy, or an expansion of consciousness.

But these stories the boo told… they didn't just feel like cuts. They felt closer to a knife getting stabbed right through Bowser's flesh. And he refused to think about why.

"Where'd you get that last one?" Bowser asked.

"Last story?"

"Yeah."

"It's a rough parable related to a field of psychology called Object Relations Theory. I'm still working on it."

Now Bowser's face was resting in his hands again. Facepalming. "You're kidding." He mumbled. "Psychology?"

"Yes. It's an offshoot of some of Freud's theories."

"Wow," Bowser remained facepalming, "Ugh."

A few moments of silence interspersed with crackling fire...

"Didn't psychology… as a science... come around AFTER you died?"

"Yes. But being dead is no reason to stop learning."

The fire crackled.

"Okay," Finally Bowser sat back up, "So what? So what is all this? You want me to learn a lesson or something? Is there something…"

He trailed off. Whatever his small protestations, his head actually did feel like it was cracking more than before. The last story especially seemed to be effecting him like an exploded bomb. The other two stories had also set off bombs of their own, slowly expanding in effect elsewhere, bubbling…

"I'll leave them to you to judge," The boo floated up. "I thought you might find them interesting."

"Yeah, you said that already. And I don't believe it. Those stories feel so strange to me."

The boo smiled a little again. "I've been conscious for many years. And I have observed you for some short time. Perhaps, after all, I was able to make something useful for you."

"Maybe." Bowser frowned.

"But regardless… Now, I am afraid I must go."

Another small pop went off in Bowser's head. "Wait, what?"

"It's getting late," The boo looked to a clock on the wall, "You're about to become very sleepy— it's just about that time that you always go home and fall asleep. And I am to leave Chai."

Now that the boo said it, Bowser did suddenly feel incredibly weary.

...But of course he still had more questions. This was one of the most interesting things that had happened to him in at least the last five years, and he wanted… he wanted more…

"Yes… you look so tired."

"I'm really okay." But now he felt even wearier. Eyes heavy, and…

"You can sleep right there, if you like." The boo nodded at Bowser's seat. "But I am to go. My will has followed through, and I have learned of a new miracle in the Koopa Kingdom from you. I must go there, back to the old steeple, and see what is happening."

Bowser blinked tiredly, confusedly.

"I don't think we will ever meet again. But it doesn't matter. I told you what I was supposed to."

"What you were...supposed to…?"

"What was willed. And that is all."

Objections sprouted in Bowser's mind, if only to prevent the conversation from ending, but he really was helplessly falling asleep. He couldn't even get up from the chair anymore. Was it something in what he had been drinking?

He was going away now...

...And he was coming back, back awake, in a warm room with an empty fireplace, a room empty of persons or any rate souls like himself.

"Damn."

There was no one in the bar proper, though there were still drinks lined on the shelves and chairs turned up onto their tables. By all indications the bar was simply closed (as normal for the morning) and would be open that night. If he went back, he'd probably find one of the two regular bartenders waiting behind the counter, knowing nothing of the whereabouts of their boss… but happy to entangle him in a Wonderlanded or Kafkaesque conversation.

This is what he thought, walking down the street, head feeling loose:

The question remained whether any of that had been real. Maybe he had been drugged from the beginning. Who knew.

Who knew what was even real? The conversation hadn't alleviated his sense of complete disbelief in reality, though it had been interesting. Again, it felt like the stories' effects were still bubbling, that they hadn't really exploded yet… That there was something he would realize eventually, and suddenly… BOOM!

Was that being hopeful? Or pessimistic? Hopeful if the BOOM was a positive revelation. Pessimistic if the BOOM was his going insane. What a nice thought. What had Waluigi talked about? Meeting a spirit? Well, Bowser had now, hadn't he? How funny. Ha ha ha…

But he didn't feel any crazier than before. He didn't feel like killing anyone. And he still felt like, if someone asked him to explain himself, he could describe, part by part, his reasoning towards things… logic and rationalism was the opposite of insanity, wasn't it?

But, (but but but) he'd have to enter a conversation with a real person, and if the real person wasn't giving him scared looks, that would be the best proof he was doing OK.

Sure, yeah, whatever. Maybe all of this was a dream… the butterfly's dream. Zhuangzi you nut, eat your heart out. That kind of game made things easier at first, but now everything had settled back down again…

Settled back down… settled back down… settling down…

_This is what you'll get_

And it had to be admitted, a little sadly, that Bowser hadn't gotten the revelation he was hoping for from meeting the boo. He did not feel profoundly changed. He had some bombs inside him—yeah yeah yeah maybe—but what the fuck else was new? Maybe maybe maybe… Life was a mist of maybes. Huh! He felt just the same walking away from Dark Land as he had when walking down its underground hallways, reveling in his newfound loss of sense. The road went ever ever on… what now?

Join a church, that's what others do, yeah? Say, screw it, contentment is better than truth. Ah, but he'd been screwed on too tight, and he still wanted "truth". He'd keep reading religious books anyway, because maybe after all they hid some psychological revelation: there'd be some grand sign that would finally flip the switch in his head and he'd see how all this was the kingdom of heaven or nirvana already, yeah yeah, just keep meditating towards a happy ending, so to speak. That boo was a profound experience, wasn't it?, an encounter with the wise old man or some Jungian gimmick… but it hadn't saved his soul. Nah, what else was there, then, but…?

But part of him was saying, yeah, you know, if you want answers… you know where they are. Where the last three (or was it four years now? Damn) all started. Where a miracle happened, heh. Why not? Had that been Rûm himself?

"Excuse me, Mr. Magical Priest Rûm, please grant me happiness. You can change my physical form (that's real neat), but maybe instead you can change the chemicals in my head, and just make me perpetually happy? Better yet, happy and stupid. Yes, I know, I used to be stupid, it's my own fault I'm a little less stupid now (or even more stupid, look at all of this I don't know) but I'm a miserable sinner, and I keep thirsting for knowledge of this evil material world. Kill my head for me, would you?"

Obviously there was a sarcastic nature to this, and yet it was true anyway, it seemed. They say there's an element of truth to every joke.

So even as Bowser imagined the above exchange with an ugly sneer on his face, it was seriously the essence of what he wanted to ask. Or, OK:

"Please give me true revelation, so I can finally see how truly perfect and wonderful the world is, and then I can feel content at heart, or something."

But really, damn, who thought about crap like this? He wanted his thoughts to stop circling around religion. If he had more money, or more love, maybe he would feel better. But he could think it through and understand why at the moment he didn't have more money.

And love… was an impossible situation. The conclusion that seemed to match reality was that you either fall in love or you don't. You know if you do. Bowser had never "known" he'd fallen in love, except for what he thought was love for Peach, but you know, fuck that and fuck you, etc...

*Souper408: Anyone else just feel terrible for no reason? I've thought about it and thought about it, and I've tried making lots of changes in my life (I moved to a different country!) and I still feel bad. I don't know what to do.

*SpaghettiAbundance4594: Have sex.

Yes, but I'm asexual… (He wanted to write, but he knew what kind of response that would get.)

Freud was right, Freud was right… everything was about sex. You could tell normal people that, and they would disagree, and then turn right around and be hunting for their next sexual conquest. ('Goddamn robots', he thought in his darker moods.) And somehow, he'd fallen all out of it.

Or he hadn't? And he was just a spectacular failure? But he'd already "proven" he was asexual, at least as far as his reason could take him. So he really had nothing more to say on this topic, besides getting angry at people and whining more.

So if you don't spend your life fucking random people (or your "true love", ugh) then you have to find a "purpose". And this purpose could be all sorts of things, pursuits in science, or athletics, or art (cough), or religion, after all…

So you find solace in your "purpose", and when it begins to stall out (or you think it begins to stall out), blame "God" or demand answers from "God". And then ask, who seems to have the most peace in this world, and it's some of those very spiritually accomplished people (what are you even talking about?) and you go crawling to their examples, because you're failing in your own artistic pursuits (you're missing all of the people who are accomplished in their purpose, who have attained "flow" state, yes…?) or it's like, it's like, it's like, yes you're doing all the things you're supposed to, and you're running the machine properly, and you still feel bad, the proper machinery underneath the machinery of the mind still feels bad (is this what religion/spirituality is supposed to fix? The feeling that things are bad for no reason, that the deeper machinery needs solace/explanation to keep running even when the pursuit of purpose is on its way, it's going, but still the battery itself underneath everything is failing, the Heart so-to-speak…?)

And you can say to yourself: Stop thinking. But after all… after all…

Uh…

…

Bowser wakes up one day, and realizes: he is happiest when he is immersed in his artistic (poetic) work. If he is slamming back coffees, and making his art, he is focused there, in that place (this is "flow" state, yes?). That is when he is happiest, when he is floating away/out of the world. So he needs to do that as much as possible.

Yes, yes, OK. Now we have a goal: Get to the work you care about as quickly as possible. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters… everything must support the continuation of this "flow" state of doing the work that matters. It's the only guarantee of peace. There it is. Look kids! Outside the window, on the right… you'll see… an actual landmark. We've been driving through mists of nothing for years now, kids, but… if you look out the right window… you'll see… what looks like a rock… a lone rock… the only rock in this Abyss… I drove us into…

A great, blessed rock.


	24. SFF

S.F.F.

I am aware…

...That I am watching a movie.

I am in a theater, even… in a seat… sitting… sat…

Still sitting, perpetually. This is the theater of the world. It is all that exists.

I think.

And I think this movie, playing out before me, is the totality of the vision. It is the film of my life. I am walking down the street, maybe. Or is this a memory? I am asleep, and my mind is reviewing the contents of its day, and making dream-substance, and this vision on the screen is the memory of what happened maybe eight hours before. Or maybe it is what happened the day before that, or a week ago. Or a year ago. No, wait— these are the streets of Chai. And the streets are dark, it is autumn. It can't be too long ago, after all.

I am in this theater… sitting in red seats. I am watching this movie, about me, that has happened anywhere from two months ago to now, to this very moment. This instant, in which case, in this instant, I have fallen backward into my head, and am able to watch the "thing" (life) playing out as it does.

"And yet there you are, still walking." There is someone sitting beside me…

"Yes. And now I'm talking…"

On the screen. He...me… has met someone they...I… know. And are talking with them. They're having a real conversation— and I'M not even part of it!

"This seems like a good argument against free will." The person (?) beside me says.

"What do you mean?" I'm still watching the screen. It's my life, and whether or not my life is boring, I still find this movie very interesting. It is the kind of movie that is so interesting (regardless of other feelings at certain times) that I am usually never aware that I am in fact only watching it.

"I mean," Says the other voice, "That if you are You, and you are conscious, and yet you are sitting here, doing nothing, and thinking things like life is in fact always a movie, something you 'watch' and do not 'do'… then…"

"Yes, but maybe this is only a dream."

"Maybe."

But this moment right now feels as real as anything else I've ever experienced. In fact, I have such a clarity of thought right here that maybe this moment is actually realer than any other I can remember ever having. I'm cut out of the situation (life). I am only the "spirit", maybe. I am that pure force. And that makes everything feel so real, and clear. What is this movie, then?

I still haven't turned to actually look at my companion.

"You're not a guy in a giant bunny suit, are you?" I'm thinking of a movie.

"Heh. I'm not that derivative."

"And yet this is all awfully familiar, isn't it?"

"Don't get me wrong. Everything is derivative. But which side is deriving which?"

"Wow. How deep."

"Sneer if you want. I'm only interested in finding the truth."

"The truth… damn… what an idea… Seems like a great way to get everyone to hate you."

"What are you talking about? Isn't truth one of those ideals that everyone celebrates?"

"On the surface. But if the truth begins to conflict with a person's personal life, especially personal values, most people will quickly give up that ideal of 'truth'... or they will twist it, make it fit to the personal values that they cannot stand to give up. Philosophers are kind of like the people who try their best to press forward and obtain 'truth' at any cost. Nietzsche may be our latest, best example. He realized that every philosopher was deeply colored by their personal circumstances… the state of technology and the government at their time of life. And with that, and the increasingly fast discoveries made by science, he stated the 'truth' of his time: that God, the overarching value system used by society for thousands of years (if not far longer) had collapsed. We sentients had become too self-aware, to put it one way. We realized that all of our thoughts and ideas and ideals were so… hmm… constructed. Liable to context. Nothing is eternal, maybe. So then what? Nietzsche began to dive into what it meant for humans to now construct their own values. And he began the work that the psychoanalysts, especially Freud and Jung, would carry on— to examine the mystery of the human mind, and find the values and systems that are beating deeply within, alive like hearts. Hum! Well, anyway, Nietzsche was too smart, and too far ahead of his time, and lonely… he went insane."

"I thought that was from...syphilis?"

"It's unclear."

"That's not great evidence. 'It's unclear'".

"Heh."

I finally turn to see who I've been talking to this whole time. I find to my relief that it's a short toad with red spots on his head. A largely unremarkable figure.

The toad is watching the movie screen too, and he doesn't turn to me when he talks. His eyes take in the film like kitchen plates.

"You're relieved." He says. "What were you scared of seeing?"

"I don't know. Another me. A koopa with no face. A black spot. Some chthonic thing."

"Nice word."

"Thank you."

"Well, after all, if this is a dream, then I am still you, right? I just have the form of a toad."

"I was getting the sense I was talking to myself."

"Yes, this kind of conversation feels like that, doesn't it?"

"And we're watching a movie about the real me walking around outside in the real world, so very probably this is inside of my head… and that would make you part of my mind, wouldn't it?"

"By that logic, maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe I am a ghost that has invaded your head."

"Right… whatever…"

"I think your theory is probably better, though. If this is in your head."

"Well, where else would it be?"

"Oh I don't know. 'There are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'..."

"Right. And on that note, let us believe in all sorts of goblins and pixies, because we can't be certain that around the corner there isn't some scary little person about to cast a magic spell."

"Sarcasm! Great."

I'm beginning to get uncomfortable now. I'm uncomfortable being here, having this bizarre conversation. I think I'd like to return to living in the movie.

"You want to go home? Why don't you tap your ruby slippers together?"

"Now you're being sarcastic…"

"Well I'm just you, right?"

"It continues… 'Lord, give me strength'…"

"Lord, give me strength too."

"Alright."

I stand up, more from discomfort than actual annoyance (though I am annoyed, I won't refuse to admit it). The toad remains sitting, still entranced by my movie. Or our movie.

I look around— how do I get out of this theater? There's just red seats (all empty besides ours) and the flickering light of the projector from behind and above. There's only one door, it seems: at the bottom of the stairs, beside the screen. There's a red EXIT sign glowing above it.

As I stand and look around, part of my shadow obscures the movie screen.

"Hey, down in front!" The sitting toad complains.

"Does this seem like front to you?" I ask. "I'm on your side."

"If you were on my side, you'd stay and keep watching the movie. I'll be lonely if you leave."

Wordplay! That really seals the deal— I'm getting out of here. "If you really felt bad about me leaving, you'd look at me when we're talking."

"No! The movie is too interesting!"

The toad doesn't seem too excited— he isn't leaning forward. He's sitting back, and looks a little dazed (though he seems to be able to hold conversation perfectly well).

"Well, whatever. In any case, I am leaving. I don't like it here."

I am slowly growing more uncomfortable. And now I'm getting a headache.

"Yes, well… maybe you shouldn't be here after all. You haven't been here before, right? As… far as you remember?"

"As far as I remember."

"So you must find this really strange, right?"

"That's right."

"So you want to leave. Because this is strange, and that makes you feel uncomfortable?"

"That's correct."

"Okay. Then I understand the situation, and I see why you think you should leave. And I can say, 'Goodbye'".

"Yup. OK. Goodbye."

"Yeah. Goodbye."

I walk down the aisle, to the stairs. I go down to the door with the EXIT sign. I'll be glad to escape this masturbatory dream sequence.

But I stop. This door isn't a metaphor for death or something, is it?

"You'll be fine." The toad says. "Go on. Get out of here."

"Now you're happy to have me go!"

"I thought about it. Now I am happy to have you go."

I shrug and turn back to the door. Either I stay sitting here and watch this movie forever with Tweedledum, or I go through the door. Why not go through the door?

I push through.

Like a snap of the fingers, I'm now sitting at a round wooden table. Sitting across from me is a koopa woman, maybe in her early twenties. She's biting at the ends of her fingers. We both have a steaming cup of coffee in front of us.

"Oh boy," I remark, "So we're doing this, then?"

"Doing what?"

"Oh, I'm going to get teleported all over the place, and have insightful conversations, or some crap." I wave a hand in the air. I don't know why I feel so immediately annoyed.

We are surrounded by blurry tables with blurry people sitting at them. Nevertheless, a human waiter without a face emerges from the scenery.

"I knew it!" I remark. I clap my hands. "Of course there'd be one of you."

"Sir?" The waiter's voice is clear enough, despite having no mouth. "You waved me down?"

"No. I was… gesturing…" I wave my hand again. "I was explaining to my… friend here... that I am being teleported."

"How remarkable, sir."

"Yes, yes. It's just groovy."

"But do you need anything, sir?"

"Nope!" I look down to my coffee cup, filled with the good stuff. "I'm already set!"

"Very good, sir. And the lady?"

She's looking at me with this look like she's expecting something from me. But it's a question of her damn drink! It's not my decision. Is she thirsty, or not? But she already has her own coffee, anyway…

"She's fine."

"Excuse me," She says suddenly, "But I wanted tea."

"I'm very sorry, madam. Let me take that."

The faceless waiter takes the coffee. As he turns the coffee slips from his hands and spills all over my lap. But I don't feel any of it anyway.

The waiter is shocked. "Oh…!"

"Yeah yeah yeah… Just go away." I wave a hand shooingly. Almost comically, the waiter walks backwards into the blur of the other tables, disappearing.

I stand and mop the chair and my legs with napkins.

"Don't you think that was rude?" My table companion suggests.

"Yes, awfully. But this is my dumb dream, so nothing matters."

"Why is it dumb?"

"Because," I heave a sigh, "Dreams are not real. And this is all in my head, so this is all… this is all reflecting my thoughts, or set up in some way to be some silly challenge, and I don't care, nothing I do matters in the real world already, so dealing with crap in this fake world is especially useless."

"But what if this world is more real than the other one?"

I finish the mopping and sit back down.

"Yeah, well there's a nice idea. What, uh… more psychology, huh? The unconscious mind is the true reality, or some such something…. Yeah yeah yeah…"

"It doesn't even have to be that mystical. The way you think sets up, organizes your entire world. What you think about more you'll see more of in the world— because you will notice that which you think about. That which you consider to 'exist'."

"Great great great."

I try some of the coffee. It's good. Good enough. "So what's this? Mental organization?"

"What do you think it is?"

"Ahhh here we go," I groan, "Whatever I think it is, it becomes, right? So you and the rest are just going to keep asking me what I think it is, right? Okay, I think this is a magical dream where I get whatever I want and, uh… We get it on."

"Is that what you want?"

Her tone is not even reproachful, but it's empty enough to cause me to feel uncomfortable again.

"Why not?" I chuckle nervously. "My dream, right?"

"But you don't really want it, do you?"

My face is hot! In this stupid dream, talking about nothing, talking about something that isn't going to happen, how stupid…

(Oh, so I already thought…)

"Ugh, I hate this. Let's start over. This is a dream where I get whatever I want. Okay."

"So what do you want?"

I am seized by irritation. "Just… give me…"

My head hurts. The headache is coming again.

"Okay, just give me whatever will make me happy."

"What will make you happy?"

"I… don't… know." I grin. "Give me the knowledge to know what I need to to be happy. Is that fucking good?"

She's giving me a sad look. That makes me angry.

"What?" I demand. "I don't know. I don't know anything. I've tried everything, and I'm not happy. I just keep living, getting into one situation after another, and nothing I do changes anything, really. Because I never feel content, or particularly good. I've read conflicting pieces of advice, and I've tried to think out my problems, and I've tried to think nothing at all. And maybe there's no problem at all, or maybe life itself is a problem. But I'm not happy like this, I'm not satisfied, I want to say I fucking 'quit'... that there's no use in working hard at all if everything feels the same regardless, because I can't find inner peace, I don't know where it comes from… not really… no…"

She's still giving me the sad look.

"Well, what?! We're inside my mind now, right? And what are you? Some subconscious-slash-unconscious figure? Are you going to give me some answers? That's what I'm here for, right? There, that's what I want— I want some goddamn answers. If this place doesn't have them, then nowhere does. So go on— give me answers. Tell me how to be happy, how to have peace. Like… you. Are you my anima or something? You should know all sorts of things."

She looks terribly solemn. "I am not anima."

"Okay, whatever. I don't care. Help me out here. Help me. You're from this place, right then? Tell me how to achieve peace."

"I…" She looks nervous again. "But if I'm you, I can't tell you anything you don't know already."

"But you're not me! I'm… I'm like, I'm a little stupid part of the overall mind me… you… you should have access to memories that I don't, yeah? If I knew everything I needed to, I'd be okay. But I'm not. So here I am. So give me answers."

"I'm not really that powerful."

"Okay." I grin. "Take me to management, then."

"Management?"

"Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah… who's your boss? Who do you work for? Who controls all of this?" I gesture around, at all the blurry tables and people. "I didn't choose to make this. I went through that door back there thinking I'd be returning to the outside world. Instead I ended up here. Who arranged that? Who set up this 'cafe'? Not you, apparently."

"No. Not me."

"So, what? Anima? Something else?"

"Um. I don't know."

I lean back, a little disgusted. "Yeah, so what then? I thought: this is my dream, I get to decide what happens? Right? Okay, so I want to meet someone in charge here. Give me that."

"Isn't that… you? It's your mind."

"No. No no no." I lean forward again, angry. "If I was in control, this wouldn't be such a bunch of bullshit."

"How is this bullshit?"

"That everything is so goddamn confusing, and I can't find peace, and I don't fall in love… and I'm not really happy with my job. And I'm lonely, I guess. And I get random spikes of emotional pain, and I don't know why. Well, c'mon. If I was in control, I wouldn't have any of this shit happening. Flowers and rainbows for me!"

"But you're still being sarcastic," She said quietly, "You don't want to live in a land of flowers and rainbows. That's childish and boring."

"Right. Right right right."

"So what do you actually want?"

"What do I actually…?" For god's sake! "Haven't I been explaining this?"

"No. You've said what you don't want. You've listed everything about your situation that makes you unhappy."

That stops me for a moment.

"Yes, but."

I stop again.

"Okay, fine. Let's say… I want some ice cream, right now."

The girl across from me raises a hand. "Waiter!"

"Oh, that's funny. That's so hilarious. Damn, aren't you clever. So clever. Of course, we're in a restaurant. Ha ha ha."

The faceless waiter reappears. "Yes?"

"We need an ice cream, please."

"Wait." I have an idea. "Wait. You… you can help me."

"Sir?"

"I want to meet the management." I grin. "I want to meet the owner of this cafe. Your boss."

"My boss, sir?"

"That's right. Who owns this place?"

"Well, sir. If this is all in your head, then I'd have to say it's you."

...

Unbelievable. And my headache is even worse now.

"That's really funny," I ground out, "But you know, I didn't set any of this up. This table, these blurry messes all around us… Not me, no. And I don't pay you, do I?"

"No, sir. I'm a bit of a volunteer."

"That's not my point. I didn't arrange all of this. If I didn't arrange this, then I'm not the one in charge here, yeah?"

"I have an idea. Perhaps, sir… You made this place before. In a previous dream. But you've forgotten."

"Oh, bravo. You're full of nice answers, aren't you? All of you? Because you're determined that I don't make any progress here."

"It's only a suggestion, sir."

"No no no. This is infuriating. What, you want me to… to make this revelation or whatever, that I'm in control of my world. That I'm in control of, uh, everything. I had the stupid ruby slippers this whole time, the power was within me, blah blah blah… but I can tell myself that, and still find myself unable to control my situation."

"Perhaps because you still don't fully believe it, sir. And if you don't fully believe it, it won't happen."

"Oh, go away."

The waiter vanishes again.

"He was only trying to help." My companion says.

"Yes, and I'm only trying to get out of this nightmare."

"Is it really that bad?"

"No. Obviously this is not a real nightmare. But I am… I am annoyed, and getting a headache… and if this is all supposed to help me, it's not, and…"

Another idea occurs to me.

"Wait, well who brought me here, huh? I didn't… I didn't choose to come here. I didn't even know this place existed, right? So that's not me… the person who caused this to happen. Or the thing. Or whatever."

"I don't know that."

"Then you're no bloody help. But there, how about that, that's what I want. I want to meet the person who brought me here."

"Maybe like the waiter said… You chose to come here, but you forgot doing that."

"That makes a great excuse, doesn't it… That I made every choice, but simply forgot making them."

It feels like a rock has materialized in my stomach.

"But," I blink, "That's not fair."

"It's not an issue of being fair. You're afraid of the possibility."

"Like a boy who made a bad contract with God. Ha…"

I'm sitting still.

"But, after all…" I say quietly, "There has to be a God to make a contract with in the first place, right?"

"But, after all," My companion says, "That story was just symbolism, wasn't it?"

"But it holds a psychological truth. It holds a psychological truth of… of the process of… the mind… And there's someone… there's something…" It's getting really quiet here. "...There's something that holds the contract. You choose a deal, you choose a plan, and maybe you forget making that deal, but even still, there's a part that remembers. There's a part that keeps the record, and keeps the process going. And that's not me. That's definitely not me."

The girl shifts in her seat.

"Oh. Maybe… you're right."

I look up, and she's gone. The one across from me, she's gone, and in fact, this whole cafe is gone, I think. I think there's just darkness all around, and I'm sitting at the table alone, illuminated by a spotlight from above.

"Did I say the right thing?" I ask quietly.

"And what plan did you make… what plan do you think you made… that you are trapped in?"

This voice comes from nowhere. The chair across from me remains empty. I'm not surprised.

"If I was once a little boy, and I made a deal with God: That I would suffer and suffer, and someday, I would experience the best things in life. But I had to suffer terribly first, and there's no escape from it."

"Do you actually believe in that story?"

"It's a possible explanation. Otherwise, I'm suffering for no reason. Even though I'm not evil… morally I'm okay… maybe even good… but still, I feel so bad. It feels like… I made some plan somewhere… I don't understand. I still don't know anything. But this is my dream, and I can ask for what I want…"

"What do you want?"

"I want happiness."

"What will make you happy?"

"I don't know."

"Then what?"

"I want to know what will make me happy."

"I can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not you."

I feel seized by injustice.

"I talked with two dummies who were me, apparently. And they couldn't answer my question. And now I'm talking to you, and you're not me. And you can't answer my question either. What am I supposed to do, then?"

"Search your heart."

"That's what I've been doing! That's what I've been doing, damn it. And you should know that. And I found no answers, so I came here… I… came here…"

I blink.

"I thought, that here… this was the only place with answers. Everyone will tell you something different, but in your own mind, at least, there has to be the answer true to you.

Because even if you accept the truth from some outside person or church or organization, you're still doing it because your heart wants to.

So after all, the ultimate truth is in the heart, or the mind. And I was still hopelessly lost, and confused, so I decided… the only place I could come is here to get answers. And I made it, somehow…"

Silence.

"...But after all, I still can't find the answers here. I still can't find the answers here. But if I believed I could find the answers, could I? If I am the final power, and whatever I believe becomes the truth… then I need to believe that I can find or have the answers then, right? So I will believe… I'm trying to, anyway… I don't feel like I can control my heart like that. If my heart doesn't believe, then I can't do anything. Can I believe… can I believe that my heart believes? Can I believe that my heart believes whatever is best? So I'll do that, and… But then everything that has happened has already been pouring forth from what my heart believes. And if that's the case, then already, everything is already as it should be. But I'm not happy. I need to believe that my heart is working towards my happiness, right?"

Silence.

"Well, come on. Answer me. You're not me, but you live in my head, right? Who are you, then? And you probably know a lot about me I don't know, looking at the back of my brain when I can only see the front. Well?"

"You're very close."

"Very close to what?"

"The answer."

"The answer. Oh, well great… 'the' answer. The only one I need, then?"

"Yes."

Now fear is gripping my heart. Because… Ugh, no, I can't put it into words.

"Help me."

"I can't help you."

"Why not?"

"Because I cannot reach you."

"Why not?"

"Because, you're deep underground. You're in a room with you and you alone. And you know you have the power to win, to win what you want, you just can't see how. You can't see it, but you're closer than ever now."

My eyes are wet. "I don't understand."

"It is a great puzzle. You… are in the center. It is like a great circle made up of many rings. You are twisting the different rings around and around, trying to make a single line that connects on each ring, and so connects straight from the outside of the circle to the very core. It is one of the most difficult puzzles imaginable, because these rings are impossible to see, feel, or think about. And yet, it is a puzzle that is constantly being worked on. And now, now, praise to above, it is so very close to being finished. And when it is finished, and the line connects to the outside, it will only take a single drop of mana energy to enter from without and fall straight to the core."

"And then what?"

"And then everything will work perfectly."

"What does that mean?"

"Why don't you watch and find out?"

"Because I don't see… I don't understand, still…"

"Because you were never in control of this?"

"Yes! Yes, that's right. I didn't know anything about any of this, and yet… you say it's being worked on, it's being solved, it's almost there, and I didn't know… I didn't know, so…"

I feel feverish.

"Who then? Who who who? Who is solving the puzzle? Who is making everything work? Who is controlling this? Who? Please, tell me…" Pressure in my head. If I don't know, if I don't get the answer to this question, this pressure in my head won't end, it won't end, this thick heaviness this stone, and the rock in my stomach, and the headaches, the goddamn headaches, and this irritation, my confusion and anxiety myself, and my… and every problem, every negative warp and whool of energy that causes me to feel all flipped upside down, because it's all connected to this problem and this question and I don't accept that it's me, I've followed through on every possibility and it's not me it's not me I can't solve my problems and yet things keep happening and free will doesn't exist or even if it does I don't I can't find victory through my actions and yet after all things still exist and keep happening and and and…

Silence.

"You can't leave me hanging now! You can't be quiet now! I told you, I proved to you… all of you… I made it through your gauntlet of questions and found the way to confront you… you, behind all of this, the wizard, or magic-caster, or whatever, that cast all of this, this vision… maybe you create my dreams too, I don't know… I don't understand, but after all, there's you… just tell me… you… who are you… you… you…

...

Strawberries.

Strawberries. A world of strawberries, red as blood. Blood, and the strawberries, red as each other.

Just a world of strawberries in their bushes. Just a whole world of that… Strawberries and strawberries and strawberries and strawberries…

And that's all. That's all… That's all, after all. After all that, that's all. It's all here. Strawberries.

Is it just because of the name of the song? Your mind got caught on a song, and then you changed the thing because of the song? But what does that mean, after all? Is this petty, or profound?

The sky is blue… and there's nothing in the distance, just more and more strawberry plants. Forever. Why not?

But there's no one here, I'm thinking.

And I already know I'm wrong.


	25. Chapter 24: Daily Routine (Coffee Shop)

Chapter Twenty-Four: Daily Routine

So, find a cafe, buy coffee, drink coffee, drink water, write, drink coffee, write, finish coffee, drink water, write, buy new coffee, write, coffee, write, bathroom, coffee, write, coffee, write, coffee, write, chat (?), coffee, coffee, water (it's important to balance out the coffee), write, write, coffee, write, coffee, water, bathroom, coffee…

And it's nice to be around other people who are working… Or who are chatting, and having interesting conversations.

Instead of being cooped up in an apartment alone—

Coffee… coffee…

Now he decided he'd make coffee his new addiction, instead of alcohol. Yeah, screw alcohol. He'd noticed how that stuff made him more tired during the day. Maybe a lot of coffee affected his sleep a little, but it was still better than alcohol. Strange thing, that… The tiredness that alcohol brought was weirdly subtle. It had taken him a long time to notice.

Worship coffee… worship coffee.

Have a pastry. Pastry soaks up coffee… you can't just drink so much coffee on an empty stomach, yeah? Pastry, coffee, pastry, coffee, water.

The writer Balzac (who?) drank fifty cups of coffee a day. The film director David Lynch used to drink 20. Bowser didn't drink that much (Balzac wrote Father Goriot and Cousin Bette. French classics, right?) but it gave him encouragement… encouragement that this altar was terribly great, and he could "pray at it" for so much longer than he already was doing, that he didn't have to worry about "overdosing" or some moronic idea like that— he was OK, he was OK giving his soul over to coffee, yes, here was the black pool of rebirth (sure whatever) he needed, dive in, take me down. Goodbye world, goodbye, just give me coffee, ha ha ha ha ha…

He still had to work that teaching job, to make the money (so he could buy coffee)… but he could deal with it. Because he knew that this other world existed: the world of cafes, where he could disappear from the first world for hours.

And again, surprisingly, his sleep wasn't too badly affected. He seriously slept better now that he was addicted to coffee instead of alcohol. Now that coffee was his medication. Maybe… it was because he felt better about himself, because he was getting more done with regards to what he cared about… that coffee allowed that, while alcohol just took his brain out of the world for some time, without constructive results.

So both remove you from the world, but one lets you do work…

Yes. This was good.

Now, for another problem—

It's a problem with the writing, the poetry. Bowser wanted to write epic poems. That's what he was interested in— the blend of poetry and great storytelling.

That is the artistic desire that had come to him, for whatever reasons.

And he wanted… he wanted to make it a great new thing! A great new piece of art, something brilliant and influenced and pushing the consciousness of the world forward (or something impressive in any case, excuse the obnoxious language…)

And yet…

Though he felt his skills were up to the task…

And he was developing them through practice and continual interest in his creative end goal…

...He found himself stuck using characters he was stealing from elsewhere.

He found… that he could not write at all, if he did not use certain characters and settings he had picked up from other stories.

And even worse (!): they were childish characters, taken from nursery stories he had enjoyed as a child.

It was not even that he wanted to make tribute to those stories— although that had sort of been the idea at first. It came about that, even in wanting to make distinctly different stories of an original nature, he found himself forced to use the old puppets, the old paper cut-outs of these nursery characters, with whom he was so deeply familiar with.

The characters that, when he was all alone in childhood—seeking solace from abuse and loneliness—his imagination became so utterly drenched in…

And that had left the outline and phantasmagorical imagery of a world he had not seriously engaged with for years… and yet remained alive in his head.

That though he had many ideas for new worlds and peoples— life would not come to them. Life would only come to the old characters and ghosts of his childhood…

And how it annoyed him! He was getting better and better at his art (and, ah, consider these thoughts stretching out and developing over the last three years, if you would) and yet still he was stuck writing what appeared on the surface to be nursery stories about big bad wolves and architecturally-minded pigs! That which looked like foolishness and baby-stuff on the surface… that most people would not take seriously, and could not be sold and spread out in the wider world (for what does an artist want, even if they won't admit it…?)...

And there was no reasoning with the muse, or whatever brought the creative energy forward. If he refused to write on the nursery stories, and tried to focus on something from his heaps of unrelated, purely original notes, he'd find his spiritual ink gone utterly dry…

What could he do? The stories could not exist unless he gave in, and wrote with the "baby" stuff. Even as the material became increasingly unrelated to the original sentiment of the original material…

He could only hope that if he just kept writing, and getting practice in, that eventually something would break, and he'd finally be able to write on his true ideas with the same flow and possibility with which he wrote the nursery material now.

(Because if he was honest about his creative process, it mostly involved being slave to a mysterious spirit.)

Now, what if he just took what he had written, and changed it around a little— simply change the names? What he had written was already so original, a "simple" solution like that should produce a publishable work…!

But any attempt to begin that process brought a foot down from the muse, who would not allow the work to continue properly.

And if she (they?) did not let the ink flow… well, then… game over, there.

In his creative process, he was essentially following along a narrow valley, and if he did not take the smoothest way forward (if he attempted to climb the walls of the valley) the process would almost instantly become distorted, and no work would be produced.

(Well then,) he thought, (I bow down to you). I bow down to you. And I hope you know that eventually my work has to evolve, it has to evolve past the nursery rhymes… or else it will begin to rot. Because I wasn't born to write nursery rhymes my whole life. I have not survived for so long to write the "perfect nursery rhymes". I haven't made it through so much shit and misery for that. I will obey you…

...because I have faith… that in the end, the flower will bloom.

_What good is it to make it fast? _

_Sing a song to pass the playground_

Coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee…

And water of course.

Coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee…

Yrev very good—

Coffee coffee coffee…

(Encapsulating a prayer.)

Coffee…

(A meditative procedure, a modern-day mode of concentrative practice. Creating a bullet shot straight through time, the soul the core of the bullet, the body the shell, piercing through reality.)

Coffee.

(A crystal independent of time, a shape of existence, protected from the hailstones of meaninglessness.)

...

(A wheel rolling in of itself. A first motion, a self-rolling wheel, that which compels the stars to revolve around it.)

Eeffoc.

(Divinely blended. Forwards or backwards, direction without stress. The divine course of the stars: they keep moving in the night above.)

...Eeffoc.

(Break right through, break right through, break right through, break right through, breathe, focus on breathing, 30 minutes of walking and breathing, 30 minutes of writing.)

— a wheel, rolling —

(Accept every invitation you get. Go there, where the people are. Even if you don't want to, you go, and if you hate it, you can leave. Just do it. Just...)

— rolling itself —

(...Do it. Accept the collective conscious, the influence of the ocean of souls. Let their water run through your wheel.)

— Itself … rolling … —

(Accepting all invitations, the invitations multiply. They multiply in ways surprising. Unpredicted. Expanding, expanding, expanding.)

…

(Straight through—)

...

Could we say, after all, that the problem was a problem of loneliness? Simple loneliness?

Time spent mostly alone— whether inside or outside. Family gone. Friends exist, sure, but the time spent with them was perhaps not enough.

It wasn't certain, all of it… the source of the pangs of pain. But they didn't come as long as he was with people. If he took shelter, even in… unimportant circumstances, gatherings of useless pursuits or peoples of ill repute… To be at that metaphysical There, with the people, was to have a blanket of souls stretched overhead, that stopped the falling rain of tears.

It didn't even matter who, really (and there were many details in all this that would have sounded foolish or like nonsense before, but it was all overridden by the utility of it, the end of pain), and even just by accepting the invitations and interacting with others in an honest way, he was carried forward, lifted upward into different circumstances and enjoyable places, closer to his natural place. It was of a logical necessity that by going to events, meeting people, and being honest, that he was sociologically sorted out, sort of.

In any case, he felt much better.

— "For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."


	26. Intermission

_What good is it to make it fast?_

It's not enough. I've given all I can

_Please don't flow... so fast_

...

_You think I am nothing — I am nothing_

The plan was to drink until the pain over

_I know it's getting hard to navigate this world alone_

少し黙って僕は冬を感じて

_..._

Now I'm waiting for an answer patiently

_..._

Still the last… volunteer… battles on

_It's the dawn, you'll… see..._

Got bombed— got frozen— got finally off, to finally dozing

_..._

The wails of ruined lives, brought to a halt by—

_If you spin fast enough then maybe— _

You know I got a hole that I try to fill

_Unwritten songs of another day_

I'm in need of the answer (in search of the question)

_Tiptoe down to the holy places_

I haven't lost my hope

_I come back to the one who calls my name out_

…

_..._

What you want — let me know that I'm alive

_There's safety in numbers, I— _

Didn't like anything there

_Come around some time, clear your mind_

Why is it I don't feel the same?

_My love isn't lost— _

But something I've seen lately makes me doubt—

_Red wire — right temple!_

...

_Got finally off to finally dozing_

I saw that day… lost my mind...

_...explosions… wounds are open..._

...

_Hold your breath so patiently_

...

_つまりはスローモーション_

—gelatin—

_Then the sky filled with herons_

On a mission… led by intuition

_..._

I'll close my eyes and—

_For a minute there, I— _

Just

* * *

_a_

* * *

sec

* * *

_more_


	27. Chapter 25: Airbag (Out Apartment)

Chapter Twenty-Five: Airbag

A hazy maze of dreams. Dreams stacked on dreams on dreams, countless people and characters, interactions, situations, dynamics. Dreams of new identity, dreams of metamorphosis, dreams of upside down and falling and flying. Dreams…

— Breathe… breathe… breathe… breathe… (...) (...) — — —

— —

— A decaying steeple in the woods.

Bowser wakes up. His heart feels heavy, solid. Different.

All this time he had been going in circles, endless thoughts. Writing strange fantasies, bored of life, detached from this life. Circling, circling. But all along, the thing had been there, hadn't it?

The steeple. That weird church.

If any place had answers… If anywhere in the world could help him… It had to be the place he had transformed. There, some strange figure had read his soul (maybe) and changed his body entirely. He had seen himself for a moment, hadn't he? And…

Bowser got out of bed, holding his head.

How strange this was. It was not like he had forgotten about his encounter. No, he had not forgotten. And yet this path had never seemed to occur to him: To return there, to where the answers had to be. Where that boo of Dark Land had gone to, surely… Everything pointed back there. Why was it only now coming to him? What difference had all of his actions made? Why was the obvious direction— that forest— coming now?

No one could really measure anything. Certainly, who could measure the currents of the mind? After four years away, now, Bowser was suddenly determined to return to that place in the woods.

"Thank you for an answer," He muttered, half-seriously, half-ironically.

He felt himself believing in a guiding power more now. Not a god, necessarily, but at least some intangible guiding force. The "proof" was that even as he felt helplessly lost, and had given up on planning his life entirely, things still seemed to progress. As he had concluded in a different form before, things turned out even better as he didn't try to plan— didn't think. If he wasn't planning then, and yet things continued to turn out better for him… then…? Then there had to be something else.

It was especially evident to him now because of his meditative practices. When he started he had only practised mindfulness meditation for 30 minutes a day— focusing on his breathing for the half-hour period, and keeping thoughts as close to a minimum as possible. Later on, he had begun to practise meditation everywhere: while walking through the city, while at parties, while teaching in the classroom… even while talking to people.

This meant he was not "thinking" at all as he did all of these activities, and yet everything continued on. His body did not stop moving because he was "not thinking". When he entered conversation with people, the conversation would move on its own naturally; he would speak and say "good things" without thinking. And if he was uncertain, and a gap in his mind opened, he remembered his breathing and returned to it, and then suddenly he would say the next thing, or the other person would, and the conversation would continue again, automatically. But in a natural way.

This had to be what religious people considered the will of God. That everything was truly moving on its own— including your very being. Your conscious mind was… seemingly… unnecessary.

Yes… every time Bowser didn't know what to do, he just focused on his breathing. And soon he would be doing something else, automatically.

What more was there to say… what more was there to say…?

So Bowser was becoming grateful… to something. If the treasuring of the ego could be put away, and the truer acknowledgement of the clockwork world (and body and mind) could be trusted, then the problem of thinking and fear was over.

This was maybe a certain definition of that thing called "faith".

And it, faith, had been accumulating, very slowly, in Bowser's heart. So slowly… so painfully slowly… But now it had crossed some threshold, the threshold where Bowser could be aware that it really existed.

Faith that things progressed as they should… If only the personal ego could be quieted.

Anyway, that was it. The steeple was in his mind's eye. If he wanted answers, it was the place to go.

It was time to leave Chai. It was time to leave Sarasaland.

"What about your job? And are you sure any of that stuff at that church actually happened?"

A small blue boo, about the size of a soccer ball, materialized near the bookcase. It had one long tooth on the left side of its mouth and a perpetual squint in its right eye.

Bowser smiled a little. "My job doesn't matter that much. I don't really enjoy it. And besides, my school can hire someone else— I'm mostly replaceable."

He stood up and looked towards the apartment's little kitchen.

"As for whether that stuff actually happened… I'm more certain about it than almost anything else in my life."

Bowser entered the kitchen to make breakfast. The boo, after taking a couple of books from the bookcase, floated after him.

"Eggs again?" The boo opened a book. "You know, you should really add some vegetables. Tim Ferriss has beets with his breakfast. And he is very successful and healthy."

"That's nice," Bowser replied, "But I'm not Tim Ferriss."

"Uh huh. But you want to be successful like him, right?"

Bowser said nothing.

"Well, it was just a suggestion." The boo shut the book. "Actually… 'Breakfast'. That's funny. It reminds me of a funny meme I saw on Youtube. Would you like to hear me perform it?"

"No, thank you." Bowser cracked a fourth egg in the pan.

"Oh. Your loss. It's very funny. In my opinion. Oh. ...But. Eggs. Eggs! You got four eggs in there. You know what that reminds me of?"

The pan sizzled.

"Metal Gear Solid. The videogame Metal Gear Solid 4, specifically. You know? There are the live-action cutscenes with the little girl Sunny cooking eggs? That's what I think about when I see eggs cooking. Ha. Sunny— like a method of cooking eggs. Right?"

Bowser turned and looked out the window. The sky was gray. The street was empty. Instead of the sounds of the local fruit seller crying out his wares, there was a breezy silence… the breeziness of lonely wind, lack of people. Distantly there was the running of motors, but the sound was much fainter than it used to be.

The world was emptying out. The streets of the city were becoming wider and wider as the people vanished away into their homes. Barricading.

Something bleak had entered the land. The threatening Waluigi had been but a momentary thrill, a news headline. Something worse had come along, that had sent the people into hiding.

"Ah. Oh! You know what, there's a good reason to not worry about your job!" The boo spun. "The schools have been closed for months anyway…! It's not safe for the children to meet together... with the pandemic and all…"

"Yes." Bowser sighed.

"So they don't even need a teacher now anyway, huh? Well say 'adios' then, right? You gotta follow your heart. Forget society! You do you, man. Right? The only reason you run into trouble is because you keep forgetting that, right? You follow YOUR heart. Do what you want."

"You're twisting it up." Bowser shook his head. "Too many words… Everything gets twisted up in too many words."

"Too many words? Hmm. Maybe you're right. 'Silence is golden'. That's nice. I don't really get it, though."

"Hmm."

Bowser finished cooking the eggs— scrambled.

"Scrambled again? You should try more methods. Be more interesting. Hard boiled… um… sunny-side up (haha, reference)... ehhh... broiled? No, that was a joke. I don't think you broil eggs."

Bowser sat down at his little table, placing the plate down. The boo hovered across from him. With a flick of movement it opened the books it had, one on each limb.

"I wonder what we should read today."

Bowser shook his head. "I'm tired of reading."

The boo blinked its one good eye several times, its squinting eye flickering.

"Tired… of reading? What a funny idea. Reading is the only way we know we're getting anywhere, you know!"

"I don't know." Bowser looked at the egg on his fork. "I don't know if reading has really gotten me anywhere. Or if it's just weighed my head down."

"Of course it's gotten you somewhere!" The boo looked slightly offended. "You're really smart now! You were so dumb before. I mean… You were unaware. Yes. And now (very importantly) you can write better poems."

"I don't know if I care about that anymore." Bowser sighed. "All is vanity…"

"Oooh. Ecclesiastes, right? That's my favorite one. Or maybe Proverbs. The Bible! Truly, there is wisdom in the world's oldest texts. Old traditions have value!"

Bowser shook his head. "Please. Stop babbling."

The boo smiled. "I'm just trying to help you. We've learned so much. Now, it's time to put all that wisdom to use!"

"It's not wisdom. All of the learning is just facts. Facts...facts… knowledge. It's not wisdom."

"Oh, really." The boo put its books down on the table. "What's wisdom then? Are you following Aristotle's definition? Or Plato? Or the Bible? Or the Bhagavad Gita? Or is science wisdom? Is psychoanalysis wisdom? Where is wisdom? Do you have any definition at all? I don't think we can have a conversation about it if you don't have a definition."

Bowser focused on his breathing. Bowser focused on his breathing.

(...) (...) (...) — — —

...And he was alone again.

He closed his eyes and nodded. "It's time to go."


	28. Chapter 26: Sick Times (Out Downtown)

Chapter Twenty-Six: Sick Times

The streets are empty.

Well, at least— there's dim, cold fog. To keep one company.

"And me, of course. Reminds me of Silent Hill. Right? Hey, did you know that place was based on a real town that had a coal-mine fire goin' on underneath it or something? —No wait, I'm wrong. That was a slip! Ha. The original games were NOT based on the coal-fire town. That was the design the MOVIE's town was based on. … Heh, boy, what a lousy movie. I once saw a video review about how bad it was!"

The little boo that is always carrying around a book is still following Bowser. To be frank, he simply appeared a couple of months ago, originally a steady babbling sound that grew from obscure whispers to louder, legible full sentences. He had settled into a conversational, if slightly excited & insistent tone, providing a basically unlimited and useless wealth of information.

"A better narration would have SHOWN, not TOLD that information."

The boo flips through a parodic tome entitled "The Elements of Writing".

"SHOW, don't TELL— Presumably by letting me speak more, demonstrating my capabilities & general genius."

In other words, more dialogue regardless! The nature of this little boo itself was the existence of words. Whatever that means. Maybe everything that that can mean.

"Terribly vague! Maybe one of these philosophy books will help? The analytic philosophers of the twentieth century believed that words are everything— so-to-speak. But go into ancient times, and you get all this stuff about the "sacred Word", like in the Bible! Do they mean the same thing? Maybe I should read a comparative essay."

(...) (...) (...) — — —

Gone. Silence again— Just the chill of the streets, that nearly existing (attempting to come into existence!) sound of a twirl-spiral of wind carrying along a remnant of frost.

It was time to leave. Time to leave. Time to leave Chai.

Bowser would have to take a bus to make it to the train station, unless he wanted to walk for four hours. He might have done that with some watery nostalgic pride-thrill in the summer—

(Oh! To walk through the city one last time before saying goodbye! Oh! To see the sights and absorb the general tone of the city one more time!) — Ehh. But now it was cold, and the city was comatose. It was not exactly dead, but the life here had otherwise fallen to the minimum necessary to keep things (society) running.

"Seems like a metaphor, hmmm? Or maybe this is just the State of Existence, and people reflect too much on nature, and, and, and, and—"

For fuck's sake…

(...) (...) (...) — — —

Just get on the bus. Just get on the bus. —Be thankful the bus is still running.

There was, previously, a period of about a month when all public transportation in the city had come to a halt. That should have presumably been a "real shit-show", but most people had stopped going to work by then anyway. And it was theoretically "illegal" for people to meet for any other reason at all, so all the restaurants and bars had closed down as well.

So, unless people were meeting in very small groups in apartments or houses, there was nowhere to go.

There was only your own place— To stay. And decay.

That was a funny thing, though. Bowser had gotten quite used to solitude, or at least, if he could rationalize the spikes of lonely pain he felt, he was often quite used to it. So when the world began to close down and the darkness came on and then no one could go anywhere… He didn't find it too awful. Part of him even enjoyed it for not having to go to work.

But then, there was a part of him, his "social being", let us say, that had become increasingly conscious over the last year, and that was beginning to let out a kind of wail in the darkness of this societal night. That part which recognized that… maybe, after all, much of the "existential pain", so mysterious and so often attributed to the miseries involved with Peach, was more simply described as... just general loneliness.

As he had gone to meet people, and want nothing… Yes, yes, want nothing, not care about relationships, or getting anything in particular from the parade, not expect anything from events… The natural flow of the social organism, the mass created by two or more people in one place, began to devour his individual soul.

There was a levity, a loss of conscious pain that came with socializing. One naturally became more foolish, more emotional, and more desirous to attaining the ends of the group, rather than the ends of the individual.

It was like allowing oneself to be eaten alive. ((But a good kind of eaten alive.) —Right?)

Then, suddenly, the night— quite literally the "Night" had come on. A fresh pandemic, a plague from the north. The source of Night was unknown. Although it affected all developed, conscious species, it was not clear who specifically was in danger, though certainly age was the greatest risk factor. Virtually anyone above the age of 65 (or the equivalent, depending on species) was guaranteed to die if they contracted the illness.

Obviously, there were many "important" and powerful people over the age of 65, so in the initial onset and panic of Night, everything was quickly shut down. Extreme precautions were taken. When the young people of the city flaunted the newfound quarantine rules and continued to drink in the streets, there followed a terrifying week when armed city police went out to chase people away.

Now everyone had the message: Night had come on, the parties were over.

Slowly things had unthawed. Even the rich, powerful old could not let the economy crumble. Things had to keep moving, at least a little. —So, things began to open up again.

What of Princess Daisy? This was a surprise for Bowser— it turned out she was pretty much a figure-head. It was clear, in her uncomfortable televised speeches, that the things that were going on in Sarasaland were not by her decision, but were sourced from directions and orders fed from elsewhere. Perhaps it was just the modern state of the world, that there were no truly powerful people anymore— just submerged labyrinthine bureaucracies, sending out fragmented instructions that coalesced into complete messages, delivered to the public by recognizable faces.

Bowser had known about Daisy's case already, to be honest. It was another one of those intuitive things. After all, his own case had been extremely similar, and once he had managed to free himself from his own shadowy bureaucracy, including the abusive instructor and real power of the Koopa Kingdom (the General), he had discovered his own motivations and abilities to be thin and incapable. His pursuit of Peach, even, had begun as a forcible recommendation by the General, who wanted Bowser out of the way so he could continue to plan all of the (more important, politically-decisive) plans that Bowser would carry out.

Basically, it had been easy to make Bowser a puppet king when he was a child. Once he had entered his teenage years, however, things got more complicated. For the General, giving the young "king" a sexual target worked as a good distraction. Kidnap the Princess Peach, have your way with her… While the true power worked at slowly, craftily expanding the Kingdom borders.

And for the General, if Bowser could actually manage to kidnap the young Princess, it might become easier to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom.

...If that's what the General had wanted at all. Bowser still wasn't even sure, years later. The General had been interested in power, overall. Maybe really trying to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom would have been too difficult, too risky. Maybe the General had wanted to make the Koopa Kingdom much stronger, and then he would have seriously taken on the Mushroom Kingdom— but he died before that could happen.

And (Bowser's thoughts turned) it made for some nice irony that years later, it would be the Mushroom Kingdom that took over the Koopa Kingdom… and through largely peaceful methods.

Ultimately, the most powerful forces in the universe were those that moved slowly, insistently, and inevitably. Underneath spikes of violence was the cool, insistent flow. The surface of the ocean crashed and frothed, while deep beneath, the water moved slowly, creating the ripples that drove the waves above.

"What about the wind? You can't forget about wind. And I bet you left a bunch of stuff out. Important science stuff. Like, the power of the Moon?! Right? Dummy. Idiot. Why don't you read a book before you think? Why don't you think before you speak? THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK."

(...) (...) (...) — — —

Here was the bus.

Inside it was just him, the bus driver, and one other passenger. Usually this time of day you'd have something like forty people crammed on.

Bowser sat in the seat nearest the bus driver, half-consciously hoping for conversation. He could tell that the other passenger probably didn't speak any of the Mushroom language, while the bus driver might.

"Stereotyping! How nasty!"

It's not like that, Bowser thought. It's more probable that… Anyway, I have to sit either near the other passenger, or near the bus driver. Either way, I am choosing someone that I believe I might be able to have a conversation with. You wouldn't be happy with either, right?

"Excuses! You're just trying to hide your racism! Or, no, wait...this is disdain for the poor. Yes… you think the other passenger looks poor, so you think it's less likely he can speak more than one language!"

"_I_ can only speak one language, asshole." Bowser growled under his breath.

"That doesn't matter! What matters is your value judgment of this other passenger, your racism based on him being poor!"

"That's ridiculous. That's stupid as hell. You're just trying to drag me down."

"No, your problem is you won't accept my help! I'm only trying to help you! I want you to be the best you can be. You want to be bad forever?"

Oh hell. He had fallen into the trap again. Again and again and again &...

(...) (...) …

"Are you running away? Ha. Try it. I'll keep poking at you anyway. Even if you can't hear me whispering to you, even if you can't read me in the air. When you feel the ache in your flesh, in your mind, you'll know— it's me."

(...) (...) (...) — — —

What an ugly, evil creature.

"And you summoned me again!"

(...) (...) (...) — — —

Surely… this was what Freud called the "super-ego".

"You wanna talk books? We can talk books. It's the only way you'll get any smarter. If you have any chance of getting better…"

The criticizing aspect. The moral authority. Mostly helpful to some, mostly cruel to others. The accumulation of authority's voices, from all parts of society.

"The super-ego isn't real, idiot. Freud was a FRAUD. Heh (pretty clever). You're better off learning CBT. It's the newest fad in psychology, all the cool kids use it. It's like, scientifically proven through tests and stuff. You just need to re-frame your thoughts, and then you'll be happy as a clam! Freud was so stupid, really. He didn't prove anything! Now, CBT (coc—)..."

FUCK!

(...) (...) (...) — — —

Just keep breathing. Focus on your breath! Save yourself…

Save… yourself…

Yourself… Because your prayers aren't answered…

(...) (...) (...) — — —

That thing was right, actually. It wasn't exactly the super-ego. It was something simpler than that.

Simpler, but no easier to combat.


	29. Chapter 27: HitHotM (Out City)

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Heart in the Hand of the Matter

Here, in increasingly distant reflection, did things at some opportune time come clearer? Clearer and clearer… Look into the mirror (glass)—

About two-and-a-half months ago, Waluigi had been cornered at the dead-end of an alleyway by the Sarasan police. Yes, after all: they did manage to catch him… Gripping a bag of stolen groceries in one hand, horrified (horrifying) expression on his face: mouth open in a confused gape, lips curved, teeth showing, great nose enlarged and bent at some absurd angle (had he been in a fist-fight recently?), comical or at least aesthetically-reminiscent spotlight circling around so that his head (sans hat), face, even most of the lanky body was in portrait, cutting off near the bottom of the legs. (Understand that, this was in a paper in the newspaper, black-and-white and cartoon-noir-ish.) And then it was on the internet, everywhere on the Chai internet, for a little while. And imagine!: The laughter, the comedy, the disgust, the confusion, that THIS was the face of what haunted Chai…

The overwhelming unconscious energy of the anonymous internet, pouring forth sheer intense emotional reaction— !

Those months ago, Bowser had been one of the few, so he imagined, to not have commented on the revelation of the killer. He had known already— and it was just with silent dumbfoundedness that he beheld that it was Over. Whatever future confrontation he imagined with Waluigi was not going to come to pass, because the authorities had done their job.

But then again, Waluigi had never really had anything to do with him. Waluigi was the curse of Luigi. If he was the remnant of anyone's guilt (to diminish this man's existence & fate to the introverted symbolic perspective only affordable to the over-brooding thinker, the narcissist, or both one-in-the-same), it was Luigi's guilt.

So Bowser acknowledged the news, after initial silence, with a sigh. With a nod. And then he went out for a walk. And the air was light, and full of hope, and confirmation. The world wasn't on his shoulders. Not every capped and overall-ed mustached maniac was his problem.

Then, shortly after, Night came. And everyone was reminded that underneath our personal problems, chaotic, unpredictable Mother Nature was the greater determiner of fates. If not stark death, she could dole out at least the severing of relations, the near-collapse of the community. Our lovely "collective conscious", our collective culture! Was it, after all, just the developed response and counter-action to the surging waves of Nature?

Our battle to structure, to build a wall around a patch of dirt, until the earth shakes again and the walls come tumbling down— and Nature claims her earth again?

In the depths of his uncontrolled contemplations (when he didn't even notice he was lost in thought, when the spike of pain of his ugly ghostly companion didn't encourage him to stop thinking for the moment) he occasionally came across the textless vision of a woman in red. The form was almost completely indecipherable, but at least he knew it was feminine, and it was red. Was it—?

The bus was stopping. The bus was stopping— The existence of the present! Ever here, ever here… The ideal end…

"Live in the present. Live in the present. When you think of the past, you are depressed. When you think of the future, you are anxious. Therefore, live in the present— the only time that really exists! Have you heard that one before? I think Lao Tzu talked about it."

Yes, he had heard. And there was the old problem: Knowing many words and words in many combinations did not provide the feeling the words attempted to prescribe or describe.

"Yes, well… You have to put it all into practice. If you're lazy (like I think you are) then you'll never get anywhere."

Quiet…

(...) (...) (...) — — —

The bus stop!

But it's not the right one. Not at the train station yet.

From the station take a train… take a train out to the edge of the land, as far as it'll go, and then take a bus, and… Etc. Etc.

So anyway ("What excellent narration! Jumping here and there like a drunken grasshopper! What are you, a wannabe postmodernist?") Waluigi was gone, behind bars. Right in time for Night to come down and send everyone else behind more metaphorical bars. It was (Postmodernist? Before we even knew the word, many years before we even knew what such a thing might mean, it had soaked deep into the culture, it was the language of the modern art [of the various realms of creative expression], it was coded into our cultural DNA, the paintbrushes we were provided, the sometimes difficult, sometimes pretentious, yet somehow in our rushing chaos of reality the more honest expression, the context-warbling melting and re-solidifying camera lens that described the modern world and time where we were born—) excellent timing, the timing of one symbolic problem after another, or at least to the symbol-riddled (trying to find meaning) mind, it was so. Perhaps only, in the whole world, or at least all of Chai, or at least all of his apartment room, only Bowser at all was thinking this way.

"And it is the sign of a psychotic, or someone with a hideous neurosis. Just have sex. Sex! Sex sex sex sex! So easy!"

That hadn't really changed the conversation. It had pushed the questioning in general away for a week, but then the words had just bubbled up again.

(What! Did something(s?) happen? How can you be so coy, you jerk!? Did everything interesting happen during the Intermission? For god's sake!)

Bowser would hope that was not the most interesting… (Cough, blush [Oh, grow up])... That the events of Intermission (assuming he was privy to this dialogue) were not the most important or most interesting in the narrative.

— (CALLING THE GREAT NARRATIVE CAREENING JACKASS: COME BACK TO EARTH! REPEAT; RETURN TO EARTH!) —

Chai's train station was not as deserted as the rest of the city. Business people still needed to go from place to place, and there was still the occasional panicked individual who intended to "escape" Chai, or was coming to Chai to "escape" somewhere else, convinced that Night was less prevalent in one place or another. Everyone wore masks… And now, Bowser put on his.

He didn't like wearing the masks. The heat of trapped breath reminded him of hiding underneath his bed covers as a little child, breathing in the hot darkness, knees huddled up to head.

The sheet… the sheet is a shield against the monsters of the dark. Wielding it like a cape, holding it up like the matador before the bull, he could imagine its magical power. To combat evil and the powers of darkness—

"Do you think…?"

(...) (...) (...) — — —

The sheet is the power of transformation. It is the curtain. It is the veil.

(...) (...) (...) — — —

Was this really it? A single bag… and a train ticket. And he was leaving Chai. But it had been even simpler to leave the Mushroom Kingdom originally, hadn't it? Wandering away from the hospital, mind dulled, spirit dulled, senses mostly gone. He may as well have been carried by an angel. Moved from place to place like a game piece. Was he guided by an angel… or a devil? It wasn't even possible to recognize this question alone, except at the very rare moment—

And the train, so empty. Maybe: Fifty seats per compartment, and five seats in each compartment occupied. Easy to get a window seat, if you're curious. Easy to get an aisle seat, if you've got a weak bladder. Easy to get a middle seat, if you're a masochist.

Bowser takes a window seat. The rush of the landscape outside is therapeutic. The constant revelry of sights, of buildings and hills and trees, provides continual input for the eyes, and the buzz of thought quiets.

Outside—

—

(Refreshment.)

It will be some time before the train reaches its destination. Bowser is tired of reading. So, he'll sleep for now...

Sleep well, Bowser. Rest…

His dreams are immensely confused. Tumbles of people, all sorts of characters, clashing, interacting. Here! By God, here! —Are all the stories he was looking for. Situation after situation, interesting fantasy, one after another, light and darkness. Behold the spontaneous! Enough stories in a single dream to fill several books over! Where are you, where are you? Why do you stay here, why won't you come to reality? —So Bowser wonders, in-between the theater show. This is when more ordinary conscious thought, observing the parade, slips in like a stream between the valleys, pondering it all, pondering the spontaneous show…

The shining narrative— If it only exists here, in the dreams, then maybe Bowser will just sleep forever… No, not in the sense of death, but simply to spend a life of slumber… If waking life is mostly disappointment, then…

But some part still hopes, still believes, that the dream can become reality. Somehow… somehow… The world can be saved. It seems so impossible, the night has lasted so long, that the light is impossible to remember. But something says: It Exists.

Rest well, Bowser. Rest well...


	30. Chapter 28: AD (Last Encounter)

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Angel Duster

TIME heals all wounds, they say. But Oh, If It's True!-

Time, you take so long...

(And the disquieted Mind devours itself all the while…)

This is a Prayer to Time:

Hurry through our Pain. Slow through our Happiness. Rest in the Moments when all is Right and Good.

Hurry, now, hurry… Hurry, before we are all gone, before we turn around and find that the Healing took the whole of our lives, and we never received Benevolence—

Hold on, what's this? Turning one corner after another: The dark city streets, the towering buildings, the spectral shadows, the reek of grotesque accumulation—

It's Waluigi, holding… the Princess Daisy (!), one shoulder wrapped around her, while a knife points to her neck.

Bowser sees. "What are you doing now?"

"I will kill her!" Waluigi says. "Yes. I will kill her… with this knife…"

"How wretched… Can't you see that what you do is wrong?"

"Wrong and right are altogether different for a servant of God!"

"How can you call yourself a servant of God? No matter the religion, one is not supposed to kill the innocent…"

(Of course this rational dialogue was not the way… this badly scripted argument...)

"Maybe, but I am beyond common religion," Waluigi swings an arm creakily upward, that which holds the knife, "I have a personal relationship with God. I am the superman. The ultimate individual."

(Stupid, stupid…)

"And your God tells you to murder women? Really?"

Waluigi smiles.

"My God says: All is Permitted. My God: the snake of the revolving flesh. He says the chaos is endless, the torrent never-over, the unknown endlessly constricting and contracting. He will choke us all to death between his coils. But until that time— All is Permitted."

A pyramid of anxiety develops in Bowser's stomach. Because— he senses now that they are not alone after all. Him, Waluigi, Daisy (silent but steadfast, admittedly a prop, but maybe a noble-enough one), and above them, Oh, a doorway is opening. Above and behind Waluigi, a doorway is opening, a door is opening into the darkness, a cave is opening. And it does not take long for the darkness to cradle, for the darkness to cradle the form of a god.

A woman in red! Formless, of no species or race, but a woman beyond. Wearing her raggedy peasant's cloak red, and pale faceless—

An old vision. Terribly old. The same vision that Waluigi fell into.

Bowser's breath is caught. He can't speak, even if he knew what to say. The script has fallen apart—the quaint stageplay—You see, in the midst of the Act, an actual God appeared!

She has no face, but she is still smiling.

"She is the way of eternal knowledge!" Waluigi declares, "She is the path to union with God. I met her… I was with her… Do you see the Path?"

There is a stairway to her door…

"Dissolution, dismemberment, delight— truly these words are the Path!" Waluigi grinds his teeth. "If you would save yourself… From the meaninglessness… From the pain…"

(If you can't beat 'em… join 'em.)

But join what? The devil?

"If you still think this is the devil, you're naive." Waluigi throws his hand with the knife straight up into the air. "The devil, in our old religion, is disobedience. Disobedience of the Canaanite god. But think!- Who was That God disobeying? The God of the Garden? Every action is a reaction to the past. Every deity slays the one previous. Go backwards…"

It sounds like humming… The air is humid with humming… Buzzing humming and choral humming. It is simultaneously nightmare and numinous—

"So our old God of the Garden died, because of society's advancements. Everyone knows that! But what people didn't know… was that the death of that god meant the return of the older. The stronger."

This red nightmare? Behind which, in the cave emerging from between buildings and sky, there is scrape and Hiss, Slithering, primordial Echo—

"Yes, the stronger!" Waluigi shrieked. "Because they will never die! We people can make as many religions and faiths and ideologies and philosophies that we want… and they will all crumble in Time's awful march. But no matter what we think, no matter what culture we crate, no matter what people we are, in any part of the world— Behind it all, there is that which our Ideas are meant to combat, that overwhelming force of chaos. It will continue to exist forever."

"And that is your God?"

"It is the only God that matters now. It is the true God that will never die."

The cave and the snake…

"I don't think that thing is a God…"

"Fool!" Waluigi spat. "It is the only real power. It's what you've failed to accept all this time. As you wallow in confusion and depression and despair, drinking and walking in circles in a world without a living, meaningful, ideology, you still could not see that my God is the real God. The Chaos, the Void."

Bowser breathed shakily. "That… is the way of Death. Surely…"

"That's right. Because… We are all already dead. This world is empty. Dreams within dreams, right? The only way forward… is to climb the steps."

Bowser is reacting—

(Is this the climax? The climax of the story? Now, Bowser will take everything he's learned over his long psychological journey, and proudly say:

"No, that thing is evil! I won't do it! It's wrong."

The entire arc of the story has been leading to this point— this triumphant announcement. And then, after his fantastic victory, we will have our nice resolution, during which the message is re-stated, maybe. Made a little clearer. Get all Tolstoy with it— append an essay at the end to explain philosophical underpinnings [as if this wasn't an essay already], have a happy ending where Bowser returns to society. Yes, he gets his old body back, because you have to

Accept Who You Are, and You're Already Everything You Need, and You're Already Saved, by golly…)

(A dream within a dream. Bowser dreaming that this was all a story…)

(But, it's not. So this is not the nice climax. It's important… It's a rejection of the chaos. Truly, Bowser senses, that his long struggles have been the building in his heart a barricade against this moment. That there was [is] no climax, but thousands of little moments, thousands of little thoughts, thousands of little actions. The unconscious building of a philosophy or belief system that could work as a life raft. Even if he couldn't explain out loud all of it, in his heart the structure reached up and up from the bottom of the Ocean, up through the surface, presenting all that Bowser needed to consciously know at that moment, which was: )

"No."

Fair enough! And there's no point in arguing with Waluigi in detail now— The man is crazy, largely. Or, at least, he holds a philosophy that craves death and not life… And what are we seriously going to do with that, eh? Besides, all this is probably not real, and a single strong "no" could be sufficient to disintegrate this whole kind of vision and save the princess.

Save the princess… But Not defeat the Vision above, of course. Waluigi is right: it is undefeatable.

But one can at least avoid being devoured by "it".

If they are fortunate.

After all, how much luck was there to this— Avoiding destruction by the woman and the snake? How different were Waluigi and Bowser, that one fell to madness, and the other, despite an apparently tremendous amount of suffering, avoided that spiritual demise?

What was the difference, that made one climb the stairs and enter the cave of dissolution and death? While the other was able to turn away?

The same question, maybe, as why God (the good God, if they exist) saves some people and dooms others. Can we quiet our doubts and fears and say "Free Will", and then leave the miserable to their fate? Bowser surely didn't believe in free will anymore, for all he had struggled, and through life fallen through a series of unpredictable defeats, successes, and more generally affectless events.

Why had Waluigi ultimately been eaten, and not Bowser? What could Bowser say?

...At least, they had come from different economic backgrounds. Bowser had been royalty, and Waluigi had come from some small town. And they had probably ended up at different levels of education (despite the dream Waluigi's statements), also probably because of their economic backgrounds.

Of course, there were poor people who suffered but came out healthy, and wealthier people who didn't seem to suffer much, but ended up mad.

Maybe God just rolled dice.

Maybe this was all harsh cosmic plan, and it turned out that Waluigi was even more of a battery than Bowser.

(Why was he still thinking?)

Let the deeper sleep come on...

A softer dream, where Daisy embraces him after being saved, and he feels something for her. He's full of bullet wounds, and mostly happy to be alive, but it's okay for Daisy to be here too. If she could just back off for a moment…

He needs to rest. He's bleeding all over, and can hardly move. He can hardly lay down. Here... There's a tree here that will do…

"Just understand…" He tries to say, to Daisy. Understand how tired and torn up he is. He's been fighting things he can't even see for years… Mario was bad enough.

How about fighting twenty invisible Marios?

It's almost funny… But it'd hurt too much to laugh, with a lung full of bullets.

It'll be fine… By some miracle, everything will turn out alright.


	31. Chapter 29: Cold Earth (Out Train)

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Cold Earth

The train becomes a bus. (At the edge of the land, the train will go no farther.) So Bowser has to take a bus. And the bus goes out, through country towns, past farmland, plains, meadows, into the land of trees. The plains and farmland and meadows make way for forest.

And at the very end of the line, the bus comes to its last stop, where it can go no farther.

The edge of the forest bordering Sarasaland and the Mushroom Kingdom.

The End.

The Start.

Very amusing. With his shell and a backpack, he'll carry what he can. There's a last gas station here, at the edge of the wilderness. The bus is getting what it needs to return to relative civilization. Otherwise there's just one car parked nearby, probably whoever works here.

Who are you? Who are you, Sentinel of the Edge? At the edge of the world, nearly a hermit, but not quite. Seeing almost no one, but still maintaining enough humanity to play the part of the socialized being (it is enough) when some fellow shows up.

Who are you? Selling this and that… In the modern age with modern products that can reach to the end of the world, Cola and Energy Drinks… And the odd local fare, from that odd little town nearby. The local bread, the local wine… What people need to live. How people breathe.

Who is he or her? This time it's he, with thinning hair covered by cap. He wears no face mask: Not afraid of the evil air the authorities speak of. He's lived this long, and will continue to live, As It Goes…

Eternal creature! Close to nature—

Here, Bowser will buy only what is needed to live. He's tired of drinking, so tired.

But, at the last moment, he buys a bottle of strange wine. Strange local wine. It is oily yellow in color— He even asks, to make sure, It's not some kind of oil?

It's written scratchily on some paper tied to it that it's wine. But, to make sure…

He's going into the woods. A little wine is fine to relax with. A little mysterious wine is fine to relax with. It's a matter of curiosity, of education. To try the local drink…

To enter the edge of the world, to enter the sea of trees, to get lost…

The wind shakes—

The wind is shaking you—

Is it simple to find a lost church? Is it simple to reach the very center of the sea of trees? And if you reach the center, can you return so easily? Will you leave bread crumbs, like the children? Will you pull a string along, like Theseus? If you get lost, will you pray? Will you ask God or the gods to save you? Will you enter the forest at all?

Maybe, maybe not. And you won't know what it means, what you have undertaken, until you've entered. And once you enter, you cannot stop, because the gloom is all over, in every direction. Once it is started, there is no stopping it. No one will save you. You must hope for the gleaming, golden end.

Is any Warning to the young worthwhile? Will it do any good? If you don't know what it's like to be lost in the woods, can you really fear such a thing? Can the young person, drunk on revelry and patriotism, fear the war? Can you stop the young soldier? The soldier of the field, and the soldier of the mind: Can you save either of them? Can you save yourself?

Maybe, maybe not.

After all, many people never enter the forest. Perhaps culture and religion shielded them.

Those that do… Was it a deal with the Devil? What do you want to find? What did you want to find?

Bowser wanted love. He wanted the hand, the consent, of Peach. It was his terrible obsession. He would do anything, anything for her love in return. He thought he would go to hell for her.

He wanted so badly (and seemed to receive so little) that finally—

(He is only realizing this now, in the deep midst of the woods)

—he made a terrible deal. A frightening deal— a Sublime deal.

A deal… that if he could not change the external world, he must fundamentally change himself. If he was to conquer all, to conquer life, to conquer love— he had to change himself, deeply. Become a person who could do anything. Because if only… If only you could harness unlimited Willpower, unlimited Determination, you could finally do anything, and never be defeated by circumstance again.

And he began to look into himself. —He entered the forest.

And the rage was replaced by sadness. And in the depths of the sadness, there was rage again. And in that rage, sadness bound again.

And he gave up on Peach, and he gave up his kingdom, and he almost gave up life entirely…

And ultimately emptied out, he entered a world entirely of his own creation, the world of his internal self, splayed out into reality, so that his inner reality became the stage play of life. Every character and every prop was a piece of soul.

(Or had it always always always been like this, for every living person, and only this kind of awful journey could truly teach of this secret reality…?)

And you've begun to see things! And you've begun to see the lines of reality, the drawn shapes. Can you cast their light and shadow, can you explain to the others? "Behold, we live in a cave…"

Artists, poets of all sorts: Did you see Weird reality first and then determine to teach? Or did you determine to teach and then began to see Weird reality in turn…?

I Say: In your meditations, May you find answers! Leave it to "God"... Your abandonment is not eternal… Just be wary of the demon on your shoulder, the source of so much pain… The unfurling of words, stabbing and false.

"Is that really what you think of me?"

The Boo again.

But now it stops speaking of itself. It looks sad, and then it looks nothing. And then it slowly fades away, dissolves away.

Ah, You: Will you find greater peace? Will you find greater balance? As reward, as outcome for your trials—

Will you see farther than before? Will you know the Truth? Will it be good?

What's the point of all these questions? There's only the Path, and fog… Squint into the fog all you like, it is only vapour… The reality is the Road. The Way. May you find it rapidly…

The woods are all around—

They moan and hiss and whisper and laugh. The trees are alive, or else the shadows between the trees are alive. Or are there animals, just out of sight, watching and whispering, gossiping? Watching Bowser trek—

Or is it the grass? Is it the earth itself that breathes in and out, loamy air, thinking and talking to— Who? Itself? The Sky? That old pairing, Mother Earth and Father Sky: Are you holding communion even now, even after your children have forgotten about you, do not believe in you? We found new gods, things that could not be put into pictures. Beyond nature—

Or were the gods plainly nature all along, and we deluded ourselves? Furthermore philosophical theories of this and that, Unmoved Movers and Dialectics, holy Word, etc, etc, etc…

Fog, all fog. All is fog. Only the path exists. Even in this woods? Even in the wild, natural, root-stewn woods, there is a Path? Is it possible?

If Bowser moves one foot in front of the other, if the compass is broken (/spins endlessly), if left and right and forward are all the same— Can he find a path? Lo, he moves in a direction, guided by less than silence. There is no map, not for a mass of millions of trees.

Yes (?), even in these woods… There is a path? How do you find it? How does Bowser find it? Can he even answer?

Stuttering, frightened, we can make some wild gesture of Fear and say: "Even now, God is there!"

As you like… Well, shall we give the name God to any sense of phenomena? —Just the same as being lost in the city for years, now Bowser is lost in the woods, telling himself he is getting somewhere. Surely, God is watching!

As you like… Will Bowser accept all of his suffering, too? Will he accept all of his pain as God's gift, as well? Is it mentally possible?

Make it calculative, cooly alchemical: "All the pain was necessary for the greater good."

Can you say that with a straight face if you've been through a certain amount of pointless suffering? Apparently meaningless suffering? Whether it's true or not— Can you sit there? Can you keep yourself from losing control, screaming, tearing off your clothes (or shell), foaming at the mouth, can yo say: "The pain was necessary for the good"?

Will you say it out of fear, out of "gratefulness"? For to lack gratefulness is surely to suffer more!, so they say.

Will you have good things again, and forget the pain, and then say, years later, fat and wealthy: "The pain was necessary for the good." Only because… Only because you don't remember what it was like. What awful fear there was…!

Or—I see you hesitating— Will you backtrack, will you say: The suffering was NOT necessary, it was human (or koopa) foolishness that brought unneeded suffering! God's love is simply good! Any suffering was your own fault… Was Bowser's fault… Was my fault… Was the fault of other humans… Was the fault of "the devil".

But not the fault of the almighty. No.

(Do you say that because to say otherwise would break the system? Like: Having a god who hurts for no apparent reason is better than having no god and no system at all? Or are you bound to the fear of hell, and you believe to say that "hell is wrong" is enough to keep hell alive?)

Fog… Mist…

What are these questions? You have the Path, it is all that exists. You, all of you, may argue all you like over the reality of this and that, but ultimately all that exists is the Path. You may sit and stop, or you may go along. To act at all, to do anything at all, is what it means to go along, maybe. But even formulating that much is to create fog, mist, mystery… Unnecessary…

Whether a god exists or not, there is ultimately, truly, the Path. May you find it as soon as possible—


	32. Chapter 30: The Tourist (Out Forest)

Chapter Thirty: The Tourist

Bowser lies down to rest. He is not sure how long he has been here. It has been at least one day and one night— for surely he slept, and the darkness came down, and the light grew dim. Now another night comes on. Has it been two days?

Time has less meaning here. It should be easy to find the number of hours he's been wandering, but his mind slips and wiggles away out of any such challenge. What is time when there are no other people, no responsibilities? In these woods stretching on and on forever in every direction, what is—

Heh, heh. And now he's running out of food. He only has some peanuts left. In a little plastic bag. Oops… He had forgotten how much more he ate now. In the boredom of quarantine, in the boredom of lockdown, hiding from Night, when no one may leave their apartments, besides to obtain food and other necessities— Heh, how he gorged! And he gained weight… And he continued to eat, and in the solitude of the apartment, he would drink in the night.

Especially when that odd, terrible itching feeling began to come on. That feeling that was banished by the presence of other people…

When no one was there, and it began to gnaw (and in the last few months, this gnawing had gained such strength!) he was driven by a desire to consume. At least, to Drink— through which to attain a more peaceful state of mind, etc…!

In the woods here it had been easier, somehow, to go alone. He was meant to be alone here, among the trees. The roots, the leaves.

But now, that itching came back. And he started drinking that strange wine from the gas station. Oh yes… What a horrific taste! Wine made from…

...Corn, perhaps? Even as a relatively experienced drinker now, this concoction made him want to wretch! Even in the woods—!

No, he wasn't going to spit it back out. He wanted his inebriation. He wanted his melty-high. He wanted the tension to dissolve for some time…

Lost in the woods… lost in the woods… Was he afraid of dying here? Not as much as a normal person might be. Maybe even not at all— As he asks himself the question, he sinks into the alcohol-flow, and a different state of mind, and a mind that answers questions differently from the sober.

Yes, perhaps he wasn't worried about death at all now, because he was following the Path. In the city, he had gone in circles, and could not find the Path, if he was even aware it existed. Now he was on the Path, and even his troubles were ringed with that thing that more optimistic and happier people called "Love"- that gliding force that patted one's back and said (in a believable manner!) that everything was alright, that the challenge could be handled, that the path was forward.

Yes, yes, this was it. If Bowser had found it before (years before?) would this Love have guided him into a happy relationship? Now he finally had it (a-gain?), and it seemed to be leading him spiritually, instead?

Cynic Says: If love is so powerful, why couldn't he find it for so long? Not even the physical manifestation (a lover), but the mere Sense— just the Sense!— The ability to know which way to walk, by the guidance of Love?

Yes, damn it all, he had always sensed that certain interest in what activities to pursue, but everything had so often been tinged by anxiety and fear that crippled everything anyway! Why hadn't Love been there before, the sense of Love, to kill all neurotic fears?

Love, absent for so long, seemed so weak… "Strongest force in the universe", what a joke.

Now, Fear, on the other hand… Here, we have a powerful force!

Fog! Fog! You are falling through fog! Cling to the Path, cling to the Path—

The Path is to finish the bottle of wine, right here, right now. Save for later? —No, such a thought is mist. If there is a journey, one takes it. THIS journey is to drink THIS wine, damned be fears of health, fears of being drunk in strange woods, fears of saving some for later, etc, etc, etc, etc, fog, fog, fog—

Yes, Bowser dives deep down now. His limbs are wobbly. Here he will rest, against some great tree, branches reaching out and over like a curled crown.

Is even this a kind of victory? Forged in the fires of Coffee, in one sense: Back in the cafes, drinking cup after cup, Did you see your thoughts shaved, whittled down into bullets of action, forward moving, direct indications towards that path— that Path (that truly deserves capitalization)?

Thoughts blown out by caffeine— Did you see again, a purity of action possible?

Amidst the sea of thoughts… past debates and actions… Do we know how we got here?

Bowser, how did you get here? Can you look over your entire life, and figure out… Why your path was so different from others?

That's what stories are for, eh? We'll take some pieces, some pieces out of the overwhelming mass of memories… and we'll put them in an Order… and we'll call them the Explanation. This is what we see…

Better than nothing. Better than nothing. Better than the consuming All: The All is that snake, that destructive, overpowering thing. Avoid its face at all costs!

Bowser is falling into sleep…

But what is sleep here, in the forest? Walking in the day, lost in the illusions of fantasy and thought, are dream enough already. What more is there in sleep? A little more randomness? A little more unpredictability? Some characters running around you weren't even aware of, with plans of their own?

Fair enough…

Yes, in dreams, there is much more confusion— We cannot put an explanation to things so quickly and easily, as we do in waking life.

Frankly, Bowser is tired of it! Tired of these violent (wildly random), mysterious dreams! Can't he have a peaceful sleep?

Well, surely not in the Forest…

Instead, a medley of images! In the empty wilderness, the unconscious mind rushes to fill the world with images!

"Isn't this world… more than this? This empty world?! Where is This, and That, and Such, and Sich…? Here, I'll paint you a picture…"

A very pretty picture— the realm of fantasy. Dreams. Let's dream: Of a kingdom spanned by forest, dominated by a noble knight and his princess. But everything falls apart in this world… the knight goes mad… the princess turns out to be cruel (cruel all along!)... And the little people of the kingdom and the kingdom next door scramble to survive. Flames! Flames! What will the little people do when the rulers are gone?- One mad, and one losing her royal status? When a demon comes into the world, a creature of chaos (and yet building order, simultaneously! A trickster sort) emerges into the land and desires to rule over all, cackling? And when one of the little people turns out to be puppeted by another demon, even worse than the last? And from there—

Violence, destruction, treachery! Is this the story you were looking for? Would you rather create a tale of hope?

What matters what would you? This is the flux of dream, after all.

Or another dream: In a world of science: a prince, princess, king, queen. Dark artist prince! Shining socialite princess! Decaying king! Chaotic, dissolving queen!

He's had these dreams before… So developed and complex, they must exist as slow construction, built over many conscious ponderings and many dream-filled nights!

Who cares…?

Dissolve, dissolve—

Wake up!

Sleep solves nothing… apparently. Must go on…

Find the church… find the church… Find the answer… Enough is enough. How long must one wander through the forest? What good is it? They say it's the journey, not the destination, but this is not a happy journey. It has been an arduous, frightful, painful journey… (and now we are speaking in terms of years)... An often companionless journey, at least of that kind of companionship that both the poets and common people sing ecstasies of.

Life's only comfort! Ha… no, that can't be true, because Bowser made it this far anyway. If he had never received any "real" comfort, he couldn't have made it this far.

Made it… Made it to the church. Tall, forlorn, crumbling. A single tower. Yes…

(Is it really the steeple? Yes.)

It is evening. Bowser wastes no time now: He throws the double-doors open. He's coming in! He's somewhat delirious… He was very hungry, and he ate something strange…

"I was hungry," He says to himself, swinging left and right in the great open space of the steeple's entrance hall. "Can you blame me? I was hungry."

Silence.

"Don't hide from me, just because I ate!" Bowser sits down in the center of the room. The orange light of evening peers through the shattered stained glass above. "I'm only a person… Just like anyone else. Why should I suffer? Because I ate…"

His stomach hurts.

"Mario ate mushrooms all the time…" Bowser grumbles, "Why can't I eat mushrooms? Why…"

A small bolt of pain in his tummy— He hunches over.

"Yeah, so what. What's so different about me… Why do I suffer? Why is everything so dark all of the time? I'm lost and scared, all of the time… Maybe always. I thought Peach's love would save me, but she didn't love me. And then I thought learning would save me… But I just got even more lost. Then art… Making art, poetry, would save me! It was a slight salve… but I was in a hell all the same. And then… (what)... Traveling… If I escaped… If I left my kingdom, and then the kingdom of my love, and went far away, where no one knew me—in the ultimate disguise, as well!— Then, then…"

He falls forward, head to the floor.

"And you know what! When all was failing anyway… In the darkest moments, in the most awful times, I would pray. And there was only silence! Was I damned years ago? Why do the religions lie when they say that the gods will save you, if only you reach for them? 'Take one step towards God, he takes a thousand towards you…' What an incomprehensible doctrine… I'm sure I've taken more than a few steps, or tried… Even if I'm not really religious… And if I can't believe (yes, can't, not won't!) it's because of how bloodied I am… If the fear and pain is endless, what's the point? Even the miracles I've encountered were so limited, distant, that they survive only as cold, word-bound memories now. If you were an actual power, Rûm, even then, I only remember the story of how we met… But I don't carry the hope and promise of that moment, of some spiritual power. Argh…"

He turns over, so that the side of his face is on the carpet, and he's looking off into the shadows.

"How can I go on…? What is there? Haven't all my hopes been defeated? And by myself? Surely everything was possible, but some part of me, when I wasn't looking, sabotaged every advance. If I can't find that part of me, what can I do? If I try a thousand times, and continue to fail, what can I do? Where does the motivation, the Will come from, then? How could I have any Will, then? If I fail in all, and plead for God to save me, and still I am lost, Then…?"

Silence.

Bowser rolls over and faces the ceiling. There is a hole where several branches from outside are poking through.

"I could stay here, and starve. Or maybe these bad mushrooms will kill me anyway. Urgh… And maybe my body will carry me out anyway, when it gets hungry enough…"

He grins a little.

"And I thought I was getting more optimistic. I quieted my thinking… But still, inside… Inside it was waiting, I guess."

He coughs.

"So I came all the way back here… Nothing… And there's nothing, no one here. And I ate something bad, because I'm a moron… He he he…"

He sniffs.

"To think without thinking. To stop thinking without having to stop thinking. That is what I need."

He's surprised at the words.

"When I've stopped thinking… it's been a force of will, again. Thinking is sometimes painful. But to forcibly stop thinking is also harsh. But I don't know how to let go, to go beyond thinking and non-thinking. That is impossible… For me."

"I don't understand… What I can or cannot do…"

"Where are you, Rûm? I came back… I came back, because I am still lost."

Crumble—

"_I hear you."_

The scraping of movement—

It was him.


	33. Chapter 31: Gemini (Out Church)

Chapter Thirty-One: Gemini

"But, I am not Rûm."

Cut the lights—

Black! Like night suddenly dropped onto the cathedral, nighter than night, knocking out everything.

Had Bowser fallen unconscious? Why did he still hear a scraping sound, constant, wood tapping, old feet and held staff getting closer and closer? Through day and into the night—

Vision still black. Bowser hears the movement stop near him.

Then a clattering— wood hitting the stone floor. Then a great grubbly thump, like a great bag of meat hitting the ground. An odd, familiar stench…

And then, a scritching— a scritching scratching building into billowing (fire!) billowing fire building into fierce roaring. Heat! Heat near Bowser's front, licking at his chest—

"What is happening?" Bowser asks, fearfully. He blinks, and sees yet nothing but darkness.

"Why don't you look?" The other voice says.

And he is granted sight once more. He is now sitting upright (despite not feeling any change in position) and facing the old koopa: one hand holding his staff, standing beside a great fire roaring up from massive logs. And besides the fire— Ah, besides the fire, it is Bowser's old body. Yes, like a great dead body! His massive, formerly royal form, still hulking even as a corpse besides the old koopa.

A great knife…

The fire swings up and outward, like a flare from the sun. The shadows all around dance— The rest of the steeple is gone, gone, he & he exist in a small circle of vision now. But even as the flames swing, and Bowser's sight is captivated, the shadows pass over all and the scene changes.

Bowser hears the crunching first. Then he sees, again:

The old one across from him, besides the fire. He is sitting cross-legged in a great pool of blood— blood draining from the hulking body nearby, chopped into thirteen pieces. The old one was eating from Bowser's head, scraping off flesh from the side with a great knife. Both eyes were already missing from the distant gaze of the corpse— and the old one.

Bowser shuddered. "What are you doing?!"

Hawkkk… Bloody drool...

"I am hungry. I eat."

He digs into the flesh slowly with his knife, hitting some impediment— the skull, perhaps. He applies a little pressure, and a cracking resounds that shakes the darkness. The whole skull cracks open, evidently, and Bowser's head falls open into two pieces, displaying gray brain matter and pink tongue.

Bowser shudders...

"What did you think had happened to your old body?"

Quietly responds: "Not that."

The old one reaches in and grabs a handful of brain. He takes a very short look at the matter before opening his craw unnaturally wide and shoving the gore in. He looks at Bowser as he chews, black holes pointing with a piercing look— like eating his brain allowed him to read his mind.

He eats for several minutes more, while Bowser is finally stunned into a contemplative silence. The old one wipes his face with an arm, still staring at Bowser.

"What are you doing here?"

(...) (...) (...) — — —

Bowser breathes out—

"I'm… looking for happiness."

The old one is silent for a moment.

"You came Here— looking for happiness?"

Bowser's throat tightens.

"Yes. You helped me before. ...If that was you before... You made my way… 'slick'... Transformed me, helped me to hide. When I needed to escape the world I knew. When I was dead to myself. You helped."

"Yes…" The old one said slowly.

And the skull is empty. It is tossed aside, and an arm is pulled over, sinews dangling from the end.

Bowser breathed. "Yes, I came here. Because I don't know where else to go. Didn't you already say you were listening, when I was crying out before?"

"...Yes…"

If this had been a normal situation, Bowser would have issued his desperate desires at this point. But the sight of the old man, lips ringed with blood, covered in blood, sitting beside the dismembered old body, was enough to keep him sublimely stifled.

The old one nodded, and bit into the thick arm he held.

He continued to watch Bowser as he chewed, as if gauging eyelessly for some certain reaction.

He swallowed eventually and asked:

"So what do you want from me?"

Make me happy! Bowser wanted to say. HAD wanted to say… Did he really want to ask anything of this monster here, now?

"...I want to be happy." He finally managed. (That wasn't so hard, was it?)

The monstrous figure looked puzzled. "You came back here because you want to be happy?"

Yes! Yes! Damn it! Is that so strange? That one wants to be happy?! One does not simply 'choose' to be happy! One either has happiness come over them often enough, or, one is seemingly cursed, and that latter one begs and grovels and crawls!

So he wanted to shout something similar, and if someone else had asked, not some frightening demon, he would have answered similarly, if more quietly.

The old one wiped grease and blood off of his face with the side of his arm.

"Be yourself. Know thyself."

Bowser was stunned. This old chestnut...

"Be myself? If I'm… If I'm not myself now, I don't know what I am!"

"Are you your body?" (The old one asks as he eats—)

"No," Bowser says more quickly now, "Obviously not… You're… eating my old body. And now I have another. But you can make any… You can transform things."

Wait— was that the solution?

"So make me… Turn me into someone that everyone loves."

It felt oddly pathetic as he said it aloud, but it was what he wanted, wasn't it? "And change my brain if you can… Make me happy. If you can change my entire body, why not my mind?"

"You want to change the soul?" The old man asked.

Bowser felt increasing irritation now, like the shock had worn off and the old anger and frustration was carrying him along.

"A soul! I don't know anything about that. I'm talking about the mind! If drinking certain things or having certain good things happen to you releases different chemicals in the brain, fills you with the joy of life, happiness... all that shit... I want it all the time."

(And his fear was catching up again now, the fear of the genie, who would grant wishes, but only in a way so as to screw up the life of the wisher. If Bowser asked for happiness, would the old one here make him brain damaged or something? Would he end up in some sort of "happiness coma"? This was a dangerous line of wishing—involving the brain—and yet…

And yet he had come all this way, and his life felt like a circle anyway. Wasn't any change better than nothing? Better than being trapped in cycles of dissatisfaction forever and ever? Thinking of Peach… Thinking of Peach…)

"Wait."

Bowser paused.

"Can you make me forget someone?"

...But wait, that wouldn't be enough. This was merely emptying, removal. Maybe more importantly—

"And can you make me fall in love with someone else?"

No, wait. That ugly gleam in the old one's eye was a hint again. So what if Bowser fell in love with someone new? How did he know the larger cycle would not repeat— That he wouldn't fail to woo her, and that she wouldn't get picked up by some little man wearing overalls? If he failed before, why would he succeed now? Was it a matter of the strength of the love? Had he never loved Peach enough (or, anyway, had he only loved the "idea" of her, or whatever)?

So maybe he had to wish for love. To have the strongest love possible. A love that was impossible to defeat.

And yet…! If you had asked him some seven or so years ago, isn't that what he would have called his old affection for Peach? "A love that was impossible to defeat"? That he would come back, time and time again, never give up…

And now, his neurosis was coming into effect. A tremendous doubt… A doubt of what even to wish for, what was the key to solving his sadness and sense of failure? What was the missing piece to everything?

Faith in life? Faith in life? Could he survive all his disappointments, if only he had faith in it all? (Negatively: Could he eat shit forever if he kept telling himself that tomorrow he would find happiness? Or old-school-religious style, that he would find happiness after death?)

Ugly, ugly. Ugly thoughts. Self-devouring thoughts for a "young" person. Where was the fun, the jollity of youth? The carefree pursuit of sex and rampant animal desires?

Maybe he should ask to not be asexual? To have an intense lust, to have a need to chase after every woman he saw?

...No, that was certainly its own hell. He didn't have to think about that too much.

Of course, after all of this thinking, he still had no guarantee the old one would help him with anything. After all, he was busy eating Bowser's old body raw.

Actually, now… There were only the legs left, two great bloody stumps.

"Who do you think I am?" The old one chewed on a tendon. "I already told you I am not Rûm. You came looking for that so-called saint, manifestation of God, to save you. Who do you think I am, that I will save you?"

"Aren't you the one that helped me before?"

"Am I?" Eating a finger— guess he hadn't finished the hand. "Did I help you?"

Was that a question of whether he was the person who transformed Bowser four years ago, or a question of whether Bowser's transformation had actually helped his life?

"I seemed wise, didn't I?"

Now the old one really seemed to be looking at him directly for the first time, the dreadful leering of a corpse.

"I read your mind, and I captured your body. I gave you a new one— And you escaped your old life. You ran away. You tried to live something entirely different— as a teacher! What a story… Is that who you are, Bowser Koopa: Teacher of children?"

Was it worth asking how the old one knew? Or was it fair to assume omniscience? Or… had that boo from Dark Land told him…?

"You used to be a king. And you gave it up, over… a woman?"

Bowser tried to smile. "Is that strange?"

"In love. In love. Your idea of love is infantile. You were in love with that woman? What did you know about her? Capturing her by force… Prompted by existential dread more than anything, an existential dread your younger self was not clear-minded enough to see. You created the concept of 'love' to justify your goal. And you made your goal to fill the void. But all of it was cheap plastic. And now the plastic is melting. It has already almost completely melted.

Behold: What you know as 'love' does not exist."

"That's outrageous," Bowser replied quietly, "People fall in love all the time."

"In stories. In stories. Do you know anyone in real life who was actually in love?"

"Yes," Bowser swallowed, "People marry. People marry… And Peach, the one I loved. She was in love with Mario."

Hrrk...

The old one made an awful spitting coughing sound, one harsh noise, accompanied by flecks of blood hitting the hard floor.

"Fool. Sorry fool. You imagine love as brilliant obsession, as the purpose of a life. When couples pair, it is chance more than anything. A period of mingling, and two souls are hooked. Is that hook powerful? By no means. By absolutely no means. When young, it is lust. When older, it is security. There is a hard, rational, perhaps unconscious, reason for each bonding. The existence of the transcendental, fulfilling love, is fiction. It is literally fiction. It is literally the stuff of the fiction you have gorged on, the fiction used to justify."

"But people say…"

"Shut up, idiot!" The old one stood up now, and the shadows of the temple came swarming up up with him, like forming wings and cloak and crown and rushing air up— but none there, but all bringing forward. "What's next, Valentine's Day? It is useful for your society to prompt pairings. A person alone is a dangerous element. Nothing truly to hold them back. You call yourself 'asexual'- what if I told you everyone had the same depth of feeling?"

"Then I wouldn't believe you! I know you're wrong. Other people constantly crave sex…"

"PEOPLE—" Light flashed. "Fear loneliness. And in their escape of loneliness, they meet others, and their bodies meet, all from the fear of loneliness. It is the same pain that eats your heart, but because you spend less time with people, and more time with stories, you have less sex. Your emptiness is the emptiness common to sentientkind. The emptiness at the center of everything."

The emptiness at the center of everything—

And the darkness, the living shadows, the curling smoke of the absence of light, came rushing onto Bowser. The supreme existence of Non—

"If you would escape, then—"


	34. Chapter 32: (Out) (Alchemy)

Chapter Thirty-Two: Palace Posy

—It may be assumed that… It may be assumed that… It may be assumed that…

It may be assumed that… It may be assumed that… It may be assumed that…

That assumed, be, may it—

May it be assumed that…?

Maybe it assumed that…

IT—

There comes a certain time in a young man's life…

There comes a certain time in a young koopa's life…

There comes a certain time in a young koopa's life...

When he—

But if you say "koopa", it could be either…

When Bowser, Excuse Me, when Bowser (EXCUSE ME) was a young koopa, he—

BANG!

Ring ring ring ring ding dong dong CLASH BANG BOOM!

Is that the dinner bell?

Is that the dinner bell?

(It doesn't usually make a BOOM, but…)

(But usually, doesn't it…?)

Is this the bathtub, after all…?

I love food, I love food, I love eating. I love STEAK—

(No one would ever say that.)

Did I do I did I do die in the bathtub? All black, hot water blood—

(Yes. A child would say it. A child sings-songs a singy-song in whatever manner they please, they love little songs and ditties, which they spin out when they spin out around and spin out around and around and around—)

My child would never say it. My child would never say it. My child would never say it. I won't let my child say it.

Sir, that is NOT your child—

Sir, that is NOT your child—

Sir, that is NOT your child—

Can you imagine a hand striking a face one million, one hundred fifty-thousand four hundred and thirty-six times?

Can you imagine a hand striking a face twenty-six million, nine hundred eighty-thousand six hundred and eighty-six times?

Can you imagine a hand striking—

(Eternity eternity welcome eternity. Can I take your hat? Your coat? Sir, you look weary. Rest here. There is no end to here. Here you may see everything forever. You may see every moment that ever happened forever, at your own inconvenience.)

(Yes… Yes, sir, that's quite right. That is one possible name for this place.)

(Sir, we have no allegiances to any science or philosophy or religion, sir. If I may be so bold to say so, we merely exist. There is nothing more to it. As long as we, and this place, exists, there is nothing more for me to do or worry about. Do you understand, sir?)

A hand striking a face—

Finally, violence! This show was so boring! I was about to turn the TV off—

(Sir, it's very amusing to hear us referred to as "television", though I have heard word of similar bird turd curd lurid parallels, excuse me, you seem to be distracted.)

Distracted be to seem you me excuse parallels lurid curd turd bird similar of word heard have I though television as to referred us hear to amusing very it's sir.

Off TV the turn to about was I boring? So was show this! Violence, finally.

(Sir, I must interrupt you there. You must find this very amusing. No, I can tell you do not. Still, I will stop you there. This is not the Hole yet.)

The holy HOLE holey-hole holed holes hole ho WHORE hole hahaha HOLE WHOLE HOLE holy hole.

(Would you prefer the "Void", sir?)

Vid— Vod— Vidddddhh— Vod… Void

(Very, very good sir. Now, please—)

A hand striking a face—

Surely you're not hung up about a little bit of violence? Even from a father figure? The GENERAL has better things to do than deal with you, brat. There he goes down the castle hall, boots clicking, echoing. Even now you want to follow, follow along.

How NOBLE a figure, the General! He stands tall, he is MANLY, he leads men into battle. People toil and die under his command. Some love him— They love his power. What a NOBLE figure!

A hand striking a face—

A lesson well deserved, surely. You'd never do it to your own children, but then you're an idiot pansy, aren't you?

Cruelty— So quick to cruelty— Can we return to—?

Glop? Goalipi glop glip glob. Sink into the mud of GLOB GALLAB GOLLAB. Eat mud. (No one understands you, but it's better than hatred.) GOABL GBABL BLOAAN!

Can we build up, one piece at a time—?

These people serve you, a little child. They are sticking out of the walls. This is a dream, right? This is a nightmare, right? There are people, sticking out of the walls. Their torsos and their heads come out of the walls like nails. They are still like statues, and yet they breathe.

Why? Why why why? Why why why why why why?

What good are questions? Ask me again.

Yhw yhw yhw yhw yhw?

Reverse, reverse. Forward, back! About-tu! March! Turn again! March! Throw your guns into the air, surrender! Surrender! Surrender! Surrender! Surrender! Surrender!

Oh sweet God—

Surrender! Surrender! Surrender! Surrender! Surrender! Surrender air the into guns your throw. March. Again turn… March… Tu...about. Back. Back. Forward. Forward. Reverse, Reverse.

Reverse Reverse? Forward forward back back about-tu march turn again march. Throw your guns into the air surrender! Surrender! Surrender! Surrender! Surrender! Surrender!

I think there is—

Nurse, nurse will protect me. Nurse, will you save me? Nurse? Even if you're not a koopa, even if you're a human, I love you—

I love you too—

Nurse, why are you here? Why did you come to this place?

(She wouldn't say, because she is a slave, and she won't tell you. She won't tell you what her people went through. She won't tell you what happened to her family. She is a child, after all. You are a child, after all. She is an adult. She is twenty-four. Despite everything, she does love you, because you are little, and you are innocent, despite your nation, despite your family.)

If you cry, she will come. She will dry your tears.

She will dry your tears. She will come, if you cry.

After you're hurt, she will comfort you. Yes, she knows and feels enough. To See you.

To See you. She knows and feels enough, yes. She will comfort you, after you're hurt.

A hand striking a face—

A hand striking a clock—

A hand on the clock—

Rearrange. Breathe slowly. Figure it out.

The hand on the clock… moves along the clock…

And when the hand points straight up…

(Breathe…)

The clock...strikes…

WHEN THE HAND ON THE CLOCK MOVES AROUND THE CLOCK AND THE HAND POINTS STRAIGHT UP THE CLOCK STRIKES ONE O'CLOCK AND THE WALLS COME DOWN.

People are clocks. They go in circles, and they run a certain amount of time, and they have faces. (Golly, I am terribly clever.) And they have hands, too. (I'm on a roll!) Clocks can roll, if they are round. People roll down hills. Especially bodies, with their arms and legs bound, will roll very easily—

_Rien n'arrete nos esprits_

I see, I see…

A hand striking a face…

Would you prefer a hand on the clock?

Equivalate the violence to a Symbol. Can you absorb tragedy, Little person, if you transform the violence into Symbol?

Certainly. My hand is a clock. I am a clock…

Clocks only go in circles…

Then become a new Symbol. You can be whatever Symbol you want to be. Will you be a hero? Will you be a villain?

(Fast-forward fast-forward fast-forward, I WANT THE PRETTY LADY, BUT THE PRETTY LADY DOESN'T LIKE ME, BUT SHE IS GOOD, SHE IS WONDERFUL, BUT IF SHE DOESN'T LIKE ME, BUT SHE IS GOOD, THEN I AM EVIL, BECAUSE EVIL IS THE OPPOSITE OF GOOD, AND SHE IS GOOD, AND—)

Is the lady good? Is the lady good? Is she not just pretty, but also good?

I THINK SHE IS GOOD, SO—

Slow down… slow down… She's just a symbol too. What do you really know about Princess Peach? Queen Peach?

[Shhhhh, cough, we didn't get to that part yet… Wait… Wait… Someone fucked up my script. Someone fucked up my script! All the pages are scattered on the floor, and they're not numbered, you inconceivable FUCK-UPS! DO YOU THINK TIME IS A FUCKING JOKE?! YOU THINK THERE'S NO REASON WE DON'T SUBSCRIBE TO THE IMPORTANCE OF TIME?!]

{You're responsible for your own sheets. We all are. Put them in the order that suits you best.}

[BUT I WANT—]

{Yes, exactly. You want. The most primitive of philosophies. You you you. What about the rest of us? We all have a claim. We all have a goal. And we are organized. And we are organizing. What order will your goal be in? How important is it? How powerful is it? Today maybe I will triumph, tomorrow maybe they will triumph, perhaps the day after it will be your turn. But to the disquieted mind, we will take turns by the minute, and it will seem to take a long time to achieve any goals. Because there are many of us, and when we each seize control, we begin to move in our own direction. Perhaps the young are especially susceptible. With older comes order, possibly.}

[YOU THINK YOU'RE SO SMART]

{I AM smart. I am the conception of the attainment of intelligence itself. There is nothing else— My being itself is the Process of intelligence. What are you?}

[I I I DON'T … I DON'T KNOW. I'M SO ANGRY. I WANT WHAT I WANT, BUT I DO NOT HAVE IT. WHERE IS IT?]

{What is it? What do you want?}

[I DON'T KNOW.]

Loud loud loud… A child is particularly susceptible to violent moods. Child, how will you "deal"?

"Child": I will try to get whatever I want in every moment!

And society and your parent(al figure)s will stop you. Then what will you do?

"Child": I will scream and cry!

And then society and your parent(al figure)s will punish you. Then what will you do?

"Child": I will boil inside. I will still scream and cry, but as I am tamed, I will scream and cry less. But I will boil inside more. And I will hate.

Will you hate society? Will you hate your parent(al figure)s?

"Child": Yes, for some time. ...Then I will find out the reasons why I was not allowed what I wanted. And then I will 'understand'. I will UNDERSTAND. In WORDS, I WILL UNDERSTAND WHY.

You seem dissatisfied.

"Child": Because I still boil inside, whether I understand or not. The sense of injustice seizes me.

Injustice? Is it injustice that you cannot take what you want?

"Child": When I see others that have the same that I want. When I see people worse than me that have what I want.

Worse than you?

"Child": Or the same.

Ohhhhhhaaaahhahauuuuuuooooo the injustice. Boooohhooooo. Get over it.

Ohhhaaaahhhhhuuuuuu you can't, can you? You can't get over it?

Ooooaaaaaaaaaaa—

Were you dropped upon the head as a child? Get over it.

—

—SO!

Bowser decided to "get over it".

He decided to "choose to be happy".

And so he was.

The End.

Then, a minute later, he felt horrible, really horrible. And he thought: I should figure out how to end this feeling.

(Restart the tape.)

_BREAKING NEWS: Former King Bowser Koopa disappears! Ignorant hospital staff under scrutiny from Mushroom Kingdom authorities! Queen Peach wishes Bowser well. No comment from King Mario…_

It was a strange thing to see posted up on the wall of the stairs, frayed from age and peeling a bit from the humid atmosphere. The date was marked as just about three years ago, though the time looked foreign to Bowser—

—Bowser to foreign looked time the though, ago years three about just as marked was date the. Atmosphere humid the from bit a peeling and age from frayed, stairs the of wall the on up posted see to thing strange a was it.

Yeas, because now it's been four… four? Four years. Anywey, this is very funny, but what about the childhood trauma or however?

A strike in the face—

Boring! Boring boring boring. You know there's way worse. And what else? Your only protector was a human slave or something? And she became your mommy figure or something? And then when you hit puberty, you were attracted most to human women? Haw haw haw. And then… and then, and then AND THEN AND THEN! TO COMPLETE THE PICTURE— OHH YES!H

{Shhhh… I'm trying to read…}

OH YES OH YES OH YES… TO complete The CHILD HOOD PICTURE, you chose this wonderful princess to pursue (human) complete with her own knight that would come to kick your ass and break bones every year or so.

OH YES. To complete the picture of your childhood…

[SHUT UP!]

I thought you liked psychoanalysis? I thought you liek? I thought you liek? Huhhhhaahhhmmm? Hmmmmm?

[SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!]

Yesssssss let me be the bearer of the news

{Oh, I think I see…}

that you, Bowser Koopa, have been living in

{Turn the page…}

you, Bowser Koopa,

have been living in the projection

of your own childhood. For you,

childhood did not really end.

[The voice is getting more...mmmm...muuuu...more mature… Because… it found… truth?…]

You, Bowser Koopa, have been looking everywhere for a princess-nurse to save you, and a violent brute to hurt you. You, Bowser Koopa… You… Created the vision of the world. You… projected the childhood you never understood, from the memory of your psyche… And created a world where you could not Win, because—

Because in this unconsciously projected world, you are still a child reacting to injustice, trying to find a woman that will save you, and propping up men that will hurt you.

Only recently have you begun to wake up from this dream, this nightmare...

Only recently have you seen that the reality you perceive is, in actuality,

a cloud of ghosts.

And you have slowly been waking up, slowly been waking up from the nightmare,

and it has hurt,

but it has been necessary,

in order to see the light of morning.

Every moment of despair… Yes, truly, perhaps every moment…

...Was in not finding the nurse-princess there to help you. She hardly even existed in your childhood, but she remains as a memory of love. So you searched for "love" in a stranger, a concept that may not even really exist outside of fiction. And you limited yourself, in fear of the man who will break your bones.

Bowser Koopa. You— a king— kneeling down to teach children. A kind and good thing. But…

That rush of wind. That noble echo. What are you truly meant to—?

Candles flickering. Clocks falling off walls. The sky breaking to pieces! Are we anywhere, or nowhere at all? If this

entire reality was a stage show,

then…?

Shadows

and lights

and applause and

screams and cheers and

whirlwind, whirlwind, a whirlwind that

will take away all that isn't

bound, and what is bound is whatever

is at the center, and the center is

inscrutable, this stage show that was reality was all

fake, even the ratios were fake, but it was Real,

because Bowser made it Real, but in the same flash, in

a moment of insight, the wood backdrop falls with a tremendous CRASH!

and the curtains catch on fire. The curtains are on fire…

**THOOOOOOOOOOOOM!**

Clocks and soldiers and Mario and the General and Peach and the Nurse and Wario and Luigi and the trees and Kammy and desert sands and trains and forests and churches and schools and everything

come tumbling into a great big sphere that goes spinning around and around and around and around sucking up everything and destroying everything and preserving it in the sphere, ripping up the planks of the floor and uncovering void beneath. The toad is in the audience too, watching intently, staring straight ahead still at where the stage used to be even as the ball comes rolling into the red leather seats, tearing everything up and taking it, and then taking the toad too who is still staring wide-eyed as he disappears into the Mass,

lights exploding overhead like fireworks, sounds bursting applause and YAYY and screams and cheers and screams and applause and YAYY and applause and applause and applause—

Apple sauce. Criss-cross, applesauce. Chris cross… applesauce? Christ cross apple sauce!?

And if there's no more ground to roll, the ball starts to roll up the air, it starts to move upwards and free of the earth like a planet, but this planet has no position in space for it is the Space, it is the Space sucking up everything and rolling up in a three-dimensional spiral, taking up everything that existed, compressing into BOILING REALITY, no, no, but it is spinning anyway, and becoming like diamond, and compressing, and—

Applause, and Then—

That assumed be may it...

Reflektor: Thirty-Second Chapter


	35. Chapter 33: NTHHSFHBAWCC (In-Out)

Chapter Thirty-Three: Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control

["Then… escape. Would you, if…?"]

Pause. Blank. Blank page.

Where are we?

("I'm alive, aren't I? Yes… No point in even asking. That wasn't death. I am more certain of existence than ever, maybe. But…")

["...But…?"]

("I don't know what's real anymore. ...No… I was learning… More properly: that so much I thought was real wasn't. Or even more: So many assumptions I was not aware of were not real. I created them, at some point. And they continued to exist on their own. And one day, I forgot they were created. Or they came to me, created, as a child, so that I never even knew they were a construction. But now I see they were creations— not real, not natural. They were created by me, accidentally. Sometimes purposefully. But many accidentally. But if so much of what I believed, on a fundamental level of relations, was false all along— How can I know what is real? Now?")

["What is real now is what is now. —What is now?"]

("I'm afraid of saying. I'm afraid… that what I see is still illusion.")

["What's wrong with illusion?"]

("I'm afraid of harmful illusion. The snares of thorn that will tie me down, dig into my flesh, cause me to suffer. I want to hold good reality. How can I trust any of this?")

["Surely…"]

("Yes, I know I exist. At least, the One exists. My consciousness may flit from idea to idea, morphing itself, but there is certainly a kernel that remains always at the center. Maybe that's the soul? I thought Descartes was disproven, believing in 'I think, therefore I am'...

…'Yeah, so what if you think? How many different, opposing thoughts are in a head?' But… I think to understand properly… Forget the 'thinking' part.

More fundamentally, there is something within that always exists. The ability to observe, maybe.")

["Hmmm…"]

("I interrupted you, didn't I? Yes. I assumed what you were going to say, based on what I was already thinking. And thus I lost the truth. The truth is to truly listen to others, to stay intent… Because…")

["..."]

("Your silence… Are you real? I can sit and make up ideas in my head all day. But…

But ultimately, the realest thing of all, to consciousness, is other people. I can make up ideas about the world, but I can only begin to understand if they're true if I talk. The truth is found through establishing a **dialectic**. A **conversation**.

Can I… Can I touch you? Just… your arm…")

["Go ahead."]

("Yes, I feel you're real. Compared to all the thoughts and fears in my head, the sensation of touching another living person is realer than all of that. Ha… Ah…")

["..."]

("Without the conversation, there is no truth. Without comparison, without ratio, there is only void. I may sit in silence and try to clear my mind. And then what? If I remain alone, then what? I may build a series of fantasies in my head. But it's not real.

If someone else agrees with me, though…"

"If someone else agrees… If we both see… Do you see that draped pillar there? The cloth is torn, running down the front of the stone…?")

["Yes, I see it."]

("And we both agree it's true. It's real. The details may begin to differ, but if we come to agreement on anything… That becomes more real. And the more people agree, the more real it becomes.")

["What about the unconscious? What about secrets of the mind? What about God or the gods?"]

("Constructions… Air, that I cannot grasp. I think at least, with focused conversation, we could come to agree on a greater power of some kind, whether that is God, the unconscious mind, or a plethora of nature spirits. I think almost everyone, and pretty much every culture, believes in a hidden, greater power, than that available to the limited person.")

["Probably, yes."]

("The darker secrets… I will turn away from. Or, I will uncover their truth, through conversation. It might be nice to believe in an angel watching over us, or a personal anima guiding each of us, but if no one else agrees with the basic idea, then the idea loses power. To be a Living Idea, there must be agreement. ...At least, in youth.")

["At least in youth?"]

("I think with greater age comes a certain wisdom and awareness of unspeakable secrets. Not unspeakable as in scary, but that beyond words. For instance, the greater awareness of 'spiritual powers'... Jung considers it the descent from the peak of life, into death. When it is time to come to terms with the powers that have been guiding you all along.

But that awareness, I think, is not for youth.

Waluigi… He… I think…")

["Go on. Continue. I am interested."]

("Waluigi fell to internal chaos. He fell to… Not just internal chaos, but the powers behind the chaos. He wanted to know who or what was responsible, where did the Flow of energy come from. ...Only a ripened mind can begin to safely grasp their form. If you are young… you risk splitting your mind open. Schizophrenia, most commonly…

Um, what do you think? Do you agree?")

["I believe in your words. Go on."]

("But more specifically… Of my ideas, do you agree with them so far? Do you think some of them are wrong?")

["Do not ask me for consensus. Despite my flesh, I am a shadow. I have been living underground for centuries. What do I know? But… I can say…

I am real. You are real. This church is real."]

("Yes, I see it. I see more now… I see… This church is shining. It is new. Do you see it?")

["I see this church exists. I see the tapestry, I see the glass."]

("My mind exists. It is the machine that translates all of this. To relate to the Other…

Yes, because at bottom, there is I, and You. And the creation of this entire reality is between me and you. Right now. But… even when you, specifically you, priest, are not there, the reality, the relationship, continues. There is always a relationship. Even when I am apparently alone. The Subject and the Object are the two pieces that always constitute existence. Object, speaking philosophically… Because the realest 'Objects' are people. And even when people are not here, there is…

Is that God? Whoever is at the other end of the tether, the ever-lasting relationship? The ever-existing Other, the ever-existing Object, that contrasts the Subject, the Self? The force that becomes more powerful when there are more people, or more focus on other people, but that always, always exists, to create reality…?")

["What a remarkable idea."]

("Do you agree?")

["Shhh. Continue."]

("But, I want agreement. I want consensus. My words may just be air, or I might not be clear enough… Or the words might be true, but too hard to understand, or they might be completely wrong anyway. I need your feedback. I want **dialectic**, **conversation**.")

["Consider me a short ladder… to return you to the truly real world. Ask them."]

("Who?")

["The real people. The realer people."]

("Then who are you?")

["You already know I am not of this world. I would have died a long time ago, but for my powers."]

("You're Devada, aren't you?")

["You rightfully seek the **conversation**. It is the source of transformative power, whether the **conversation **is through words, or through physical acts of good creation, or even through sexual practice."]

("The details do not matter… 'God' is in the **conversation**. The give-and-take of the interaction. It is the fundamental interaction that creates all reality. Even in private creation, such as writing a poem or a story, it is the interaction with those who wrote before you. The **conversation** or **dialectic **is the truest existence.")

["Then…"]

("Then in order to build this world, in order to seek the most powerful, greatest reality, there must be interaction. More interaction. Collaboration. **Conversation. Dialectic. **Meeting more people. Returning to old acquaintances. The building of links, across the country, across the planet. The union of peoples. The sharing of ideas. Shared creation. Building…")

["Your face is red. You're sweating."]

("My mind is racing furiously. Connections are being made… I forgot everything for a moment… System reboot… And now I'm understanding again. Relationships… are truth. My truth at least… But then, the truth of the world, for the greater powers are what more people agree exists. If we would prosper…")

["Go out. Return to the world of the living…"]

("Go out. Return to the people. Return to my nation… I've been running. I still don't know from what exactly, but in order to save myself and the world, there must be communion. Community, of some sort. Meaning through interaction with other people.")

["Then, go."]

("I get up, and I go, and I walk out this church door, this shining door—")

"Whoa whoa, slow down, buddy."

"Blindingly white… This place shines… How did it happen? Ah, well… Maybe I'm only imagining it…"

"Yeah, wait, I think you should take a seat… How long have you been out here?"

"The door…"

"Wait, buddy, you're shaking…"

"...Argh…!"

"Oh shit! Yeah… Lotta rubble around here… You okay?"

"Ah… fuck… Hahaha… I scraped my arm… Hahaha… Feels good."

"Feels good?"

"I'm bleeding. My body is helping me… Ow…"

"Yikes. I think I might have a bandaid in my backpack. Hold on a minute… Dang…"

"Wait… I think…"

"..."

"..."

"Oh, yeah… Huh…"

"What the hell?"

"Oh… huh… I think it healed… At least… I think…"

"What the hell happened to your arm?!"

"Yeah, that doesn't look like a koopa's arm, huh? What if…?"

"..."

"..."

"I don't know if there are any mirrors here, but… There are puddles… Has it been raining?"

"Yeah, it's been raining for the last two days…. But… What the hell d'you'd…?!"

"Ah… Oh yeah… Look at that. I'm not imagining…?"

"You have a human arm!"

"Huh, yeah. Didn't need to yell, but… Yes… I…

I see it in my head now, and… It's getting clearer to me… Thank you, Devada…"

"Huh?"

"And, thank you…?"

"A-Andy."

"Andy. Right. Thank you. I don't think I'll need a bandaid… I'd like to tell you what just happened, but… I don't think I can explain it yet. And… I can't stay here now… This isn't my place anymore… There's... Someone I have to talk to… Several people..."

"Uhh…"

"I'm sure we'll meet again, Andy."

"G-goodbye?"

"If I vanish, don't be surprised. Goodbye."

"If….?"

!


	36. Epilogue: Untitled

Epilogue: Untitled

!

Bursting out of water, throwing head back—

Did our teacher really leave without a word? That's what the others were talking about. Some of the others.

I'm sorry. I'm still trying hard to be careful with my words. I don't want to be a liar. I don't want to be remembered that way a hundred years from now.

I used to lie about all sorts of things. My family's apartment is very small, and there are four of us. Mom, Dad, me, and my sister. She's very little still. She's just started going to school, so it's nice when I come back home, before I go to the private academy for more lessons, and I can sit at home and quietly eat a snack. I don't have to worry about making sure she's fine.

Our teacher disappeared. Our foreign teacher. School closed, and everyone went home.

The teachers went back to their homes too— they don't live in the school, of course. And everything got quiet…

But now, if we can, we're taking classes on computers. And the news is… The foreign language teacher is gone. Someone else, someone from our own country, is going to teach for now. Until they find another foreigner. There's some in the city already, but…

What happened to him? Mr. Kuppa…

Everyone wants to know. He was one of my favorite teachers. Not just because he was a foreigner, but… I think he's like me. I think he's sad. I think he's honest, too.

I'm good at the Mushroom language, so I could talk with him… I've practiced a lot in private school.

How did he come here? Huh…

It's been more crowded than ever at home. We have four rooms: Two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen-living room. My sister sleeps with my parents, so I get a room to myself. But soon she'll be old enough and we'll have to share.

I don't want that, but I know it has to happen.

Mr. Kuppa, easily embarrassed. Always seemed a little scared, but scared of something honest. Scared for the good. Some adults are scared all the time, but it's because they're doing something wrong all the time. Mr. Kuppa was scared for the future, I think. Or the past. I don't know.

I'm scared sometimes too. If I don't study hard enough, I'll end up a garbageman. That's what my Mom says. She says if I don't want to spend my life like the people in the streets, I have to study and get good grades.

Well… I'm trying. But if it's really late, I'll pass out over my homework.

People are going outside again. I think it's safe. My parents are worried, but they let me go out now. I've started taking walks. I take my classes on the computer, and then I go for a walk. I wonder if I'll see Mr. Kuppa…? I think about it sometimes. I used to see him when he left the school. I guess his apartment was near the school, because he didn't go underground to the train.

I wonder why he didn't say goodbye? Where did he go?

I realized I've forgotten a lot. When I was eight, I had a lot of memories about being three and four-years-old. But a while ago I realized I couldn't remember most of those memories. Instead I have more memories of being eleven and twelve now, like the newer memories pushed out the old.

Will I remember Mr. Kuppa for long? Maybe in ten years I won't remember any of this anymore. Or maybe I'll remember, because I'll wonder if the Night got him, and no one at school wanted to say so.

But I don't think so. I remember:

"Be like the Eye of the tornado."

Mr. Kuppa, a new sound in his voice. Shortly before he left. Pacing back and forth.

"Be like the Eye of the tornado— The calm in the center that everything circles around. The center of the force."

But he was speaking in Mushroom. I might have been the only one who could understand. And I still don't really understand, just the words. The Eye of the tornado? But how can I be calm? If I don't work hard, I won't get good grades, and I'll end up poor. I'll move people's garbage for a living.

And how could a motionless center cause everything to spin? Well, I do feel it… I do feel the truth of it. It's true the center of the tornado is calm. But I don't really understand. And I can't do what I don't understand, right?

Or, is it like building something from scratch? Piece by piece… Unaware of the whole, we connect part to part, guessing, and somehow, something New is created.

With the Idea alone, can we slowly build, one part at a time, until one day— the Whole is created?

I think understanding is like that. You don't understand something, though you try, and you gather ideas, but you still don't understand.

And then one day…

One day, it's like a hand pulls you straight up into the air, and you see everything below you and see how it was all connected all along.

A sudden miracle— the Whole. Like the Hole of the Tornado. The Eye, the same.

I don't understand these pieces, or why they seem to connect. But, slowly…

I don't want to feel sad and bitter, about where I am in the world. I want to remember the Whole.

The Whole that exists all along, that the parts slowly come to form. As long as we keep moving, turning the pages of our own storybooks, the pieces will come together, I think. Someday.

Mom says I think too much for my age.

But I don't care, because I don't get bullied so much anymore. Not really at all.

But I am ignored more.

That's okay. I have enough friends. And when the air is cool outside, especially going by the river, I feel a little closer to understanding.

It's time to clear my head. I'm going to take a walk.

The End

Credits

(Credits Theme: "Halogen (I Could Be a Shadow)" by Neon Indian)

Written By: Magikoopa981

Influx - Contemporary Albums

Doolittle (Pixies, 1989)

Emergency & I (The Dismemberment Plan, 1999)

Heaven or Las Vegas (Cocteau Twins, 1990)

Kid A (Radiohead, 2000)

Lonerism (Tame Impala, 2012)

Loveless (My Bloody Valentine, 1991)

Merriweather Post Pavilion (Animal Collective, 2009)

Music Has the Right to Children (Boards of Canada, 1998)

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Kanye West, 2010)

OK Computer (Radiohead, 1997)

Reflektor (Arcade Fire, 2013)

Run the Jewels 2 (Run the Jewels, 2014)

The Soft Bulletin (The Flaming Lips, 1999)

Source Tags & Codes (...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, 2002)

Tomorrow's Harvest (Boards of Canada, 2013)

Influx - Contemporary Films

Alice (Jan Svankmajer, 1988)

Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000)

Deep Red (Dario Argento, 1975)

Night is Short, Walk On Girl (Masaaki Yuasa, 2017)

Se7en (David Fincher, 1995)

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962)

Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch, 2017)

Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)

Special Thanks

Reviewers: Amethyst Goldenwind, C. Mechayoshi, CraSyMario, David88, greatGatsbia, James Birdsong, Minman083, williamcll

Musicians: ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, Arvo Pärt, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Boards of Canada, Caught A Ghost, The Dismemberment Plan, Fall Out Boy, The Flaming Lips, Gorillaz, Kanye West, Lissie, Múm, My Bloody Valentine, Neon Indian, Pixies, Post Animal, Radiohead, Raury, Run the Jewels, Sakanaction, Thomas Newman, TV on the Radio

Composed 2019-2020.


End file.
